Masks
by Lynse
Summary: Ladybug wanted to keep their identities a secret, even from each other; Chat Noir reluctantly respected her wishes. But when Ladybug's existence is threatened, Marinette needs to find the boy beneath her partner's mask, and Adrien needs to connect with the girl who is Ladybug.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: For PFTones3482, who is really the only reason this story exists in the first place because she's the one who introduced me to this fandom and has put up with me asking random questions about it ever since. Also, be warned that I've only seen the first ten episodes, all of which were subbed, so…. There'll definitely be differences once the English version comes out, and this fic will certainly be canon divergent after those first ten episodes. Please point out any little spelling/grammar mistakes you may notice so I can fix them. As always, standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

"Halt!" Madame Neumann called. "Philippe, mind your footing. Adrien, you may advance."

Instead of moving forward the allotted metre, Adrien lowered his foil and took off his fencing mask. Philippe had already thrown his mask on the floor. "I need some water," Philippe growled as he stomped off the piste.

"Etiquette, Philippe!"

"Etiquette?" Philippe snarled, rounding on their instructor. "You favour _him_." Philippe's foil jabbed blindly in Adrien's direction, but the others had also halted their matches and stood well away from him. "Everyone always favours him because they think he's perfect and can do no wrong!"

Madame Neumann's eyes narrowed behind her glasses, and her lips pressed into a thin line. She was as severe as she looked, sharp as a tack and with just enough grey hair to make it clear that she had the experience to back up her word and wouldn't abide nonsense. "Apologize and withdraw your accusations, Monsieur Dupond." She would not like handing out a suspension to one of their best fencers, even a short one, but Adrien knew as well as everyone else that that was what was coming if Philippe didn't yield. All of their instructors were strict, but Madame Neumann was one of the harshest. She always said her place in the sport allowed her to be nothing less.

Philippe glared, but Madame Neumann did not back down. Adrien shifted uncomfortably and was about to suggest a rematch when Philippe spat, "No. I will not participate in a fixed bout." He stalked toward the locker room.

"I'll, ah, perhaps get a bit of water myself," Adrien murmured. He knew Philippe's accusations were unfounded—Madame Neumann was strict but fair and an excellent instructor—but he never liked being reminded of the fact that some people thought of him as a spoiled brat who had had things handed to him on a silver platter.

He would trade anything he had in return for recognition from his father.

Well.

Almost anything.

He wasn't so sure he'd be able to part with Plagg, since the cheese-loving kwami was as much a friend to him as Nino, and he wasn't about to give up being Chat Noir when the city needed him. When _Ladybug_ needed him. He wasn't so sure he'd be able to give up the chance to be close to her, either.

Philippe wasn't in the locker room when Adrien arrived, but that was perhaps just as well. Philippe's skill was still outstripped by his ego, and unreasonable anger had no place in fencing.

* * *

Philippe, who had stormed off past the locker room and the nearest water fountains in search of sanctuary despite his fencing gear, never saw the black akuma land on his foil.

" _Blademaster."_ Philippe's head rose, his eyes staring straight ahead but not seeing as he listened to the voice in his head. _"I am Hawk Moth, and I know you are being treated unfairly. I will help you cut down your opposition if retrieve something that was unfairly taken from me in return."_

"Tell me what you want," Philippe said, but he had already agreed to the terms and the dark magic was already spreading over him.

* * *

"Maybe I shouldn't do this," Marinette said into her cell phone as she paced back and forth on the sidewalk. Even just the knowledge that Adrien was inside was making her lose her nerve. "This is a bad idea. I shouldn't be here."

" _Marinette."_ Alya's voice was as reproachful as ever. _"You memorized his schedule, and you know exactly when you need to round the corner to coincidentally run into him. Just remember what I told you and you'll be fine."_

"But that's my problem! I'm already forgetting what you told me and I'm never fine because I just have to look at him and I forget how to talk, let alone what to say!"

" _Just breathe, okay? All you're doing is asking him to the movies. Just slip it into casual conversation."_

"But that requires being able to _hold_ a conversation." Marinette pulled at her hair. "You've seen me. You know I choke up every time I try to talk to him."

" _That's why you just need to— Manon! Put that back! Remember magical unicorns don't grant wishes to— Hey! Are you listening to me? Look, Marinette, I need to go. You'll be fine."_

Marinette sighed and hung up. She could do this. She could do this. Just because it was Adrien and he was so sweet and perfect and—

"Why not pretend it isn't him you're talking to?" Tikki wondered, looking up at Marinette from her place in Marinette's purse. Had they been alone, the kwami wouldn't have still been hiding, but there was too much potential that someone might see her for her to come out now.

"I _can't_. If it were as easy as mind over matter, I would've been able to leave a message on his phone." Marinette finally stopped pacing and slumped against the side of the building, sliding down until she was sitting on the sidewalk with her knees up in front of her. Cradling the purse as she was, she could talk to Tikki in relative peace. "And it would be different if I hadn't been the one to ditch the movie date Alya got us." Not that she'd had much of a choice; she and Chat Noir had had to save the city from Wildflower. The _only_ saving grace to all of that had been that Nino had gotten a hurried message from Adrien that he'd gotten caught in the traffic jam Wildflower's vines had caused and wouldn't be able to make it, either.

Which was why Alya had had the brilliant idea that Marinette ask Adrien to go catch the film they'd missed, now that they weren't in danger from overactive flora.

It had just taken her a few weeks to work up the nerve to come.

"You were busy being brilliant. And you had no trouble talking to Chat Noir when it came to defeating Wildflower or anyone since. Maybe—"

"Tikki," Marinette said, "Adrien isn't Chat Noir. He's _much_ better than Chat Noir, in every single way. You can't compare them! Talking to Adrien is…is…." Marinette studied the picture of Adrien that was set as her phone's background and searched for the right words for a few seconds before giving up. "Impossible."

"But you can do it," Tikki said, sparing the phone a glance even though she knew quite well what Marinette's crush looked like. "He is only a boy, and your confidence as Ladybug does not come from me."

"This is different," Marinette insisted. "And Adrien is so much more than just a boy; he's…he's…." She shrugged helplessly, still unable to find the right words. "He's perfect."

Screams erupted from somewhere inside the building, and Marinette bolted to her feet. _Adrien's in there!_ She was inside in an instant, ducking into the first alcove she spotted so she wouldn't be seen. "Tikki," she called, "transform me!"

Marinette might not be able to summon the courage to ask Adrien out on a date, but Ladybug could at least protect him—and everyone else—until she could.

* * *

Adrien stared as Philippe advanced on him; it must be Philippe, although he was now clad in a black facsimile of his former fencing gear complete with mask and he carried not one but two swords, both of which looked stronger and sharper than sabres. Some of the other students shrieked and fled, dropping their foils in the process. A few huddled by the far wall, near a door just in case but keeping a rather firm grip on their weapons, and Madame Neumann moved so that she could easily reach one of the forgotten blades, though she did not yet pick it up.

Adrien himself was rooted to the spot, back on the piste in preparation for another bout and desperately wished he'd spent five more minutes nursing his water bottle in the locker room. Even if Plagg hadn't been in Adrien's bag with everything else, Adrien couldn't transform in front of the others.

"Monsieur Dupond! You cannot—"

"I am Blademaster!" Blademaster's right hand shot out, quick as lightning, and sliced through Madame Neumann's jacket and scored her chest protector. She stumbled back, her composure lost. "I will prove it to you!"

Madame Neumann kept backing away, likely to inform the police even if they couldn't do much of anything. Adrien began to creep toward the nearest door—the other remaining students had abandoned their bravado and already dashed away—but Blademaster's other sword blocked his path before he'd taken three steps. "En guarde," he sneered.

Adrien swallowed but stepped back and raised his blade, adjusting his stance to the ready position. He wished he could believe a loss would restore Philippe, but he knew better.

Blademaster lunged, moving so quickly Adrien hardly had time to parry the attack. It was all Adrien could do to defend himself, and Blademaster was still only fighting with one blade, his right, keeping the left one behind his back. Adrien took an opening when he finally saw it, making an attack of his own, but suddenly Blademaster had twisted Adrien's foil from his hand and his other sword quivered at Adrien's throat.

Blademaster's left sword hand was suddenly jerked away, and Adrien realized Ladybug's yo-yo was wrapped around it. The heroine smiled when he looked over and she retracted the cord as he scrambled back. As she began spinning the yo-yo again, she said, "Two swords against none isn't a fair fight. Why not give me one?"

She shot Adrien a look he could easily interpret: get out. While she distracted Blademaster, he ran, and by some stroke of luck, the locker room was empty when he reached it. "Plagg!" In the brief time he'd been gone, the kwami had devoured _another_ hunk of cheese, this time gruyère. "We don't have time for this!"

"What's your rush?" the kwami asked, but he'd hardly opened his eyes again before Adrien initiated the transformation process and he was pulled into Adrien's ring.

In the interest of keeping his identity a secret—although he wouldn't mind Ladybug knowing the truth, especially if he could know who she was in return—he entered the practice area from the far side, which was an easy enough thing to do when he knew the area like the back of his paw and had no trouble scaling walls.

He landed lightly and quickly realized that while Ladybug might have been successful in keeping Blademaster occupied, she had not been successful in disarming him—and he had probably been inches away from trimming more than her hair quite frequently, judging by the scars on both the floor and the walls. Adrien had known Blademaster would not be holding normal swords, but for them to still be so sharp….

"The akuma's in his sword," Ladybug said as she landed by his side. "I'm just not sure which one."

"The right one." It must be; Philippe was right-handed, and although he'd been teaching himself to use his left, he was still stronger with his dominant hand. And he'd only left carrying one sword.

Ladybug gave him a sideways glance. "How do you—?"

Adrien waved at her with his right hand. "More people are right—awk!" He pushed Ladybug out of the way of a flying foil and narrowly avoided being skewered himself. Blademaster still held both his swords, but he was now throwing forgotten ones their way, probably to split them up so he could fight them more easily. Trouble was, he didn't even need to touch the other swords to control them; they seemed to obey his gestures, at least until they got wedged somewhere or snapped in two.

Blademaster.

It figured he could control the swords like that, too, when he wished it.

Adrien rolled to his feet and spun his staff, elongating it before dashing in to give Ladybug more room to work. If she ended up needing to use her Lucky Charm to get them out of this, she'd need time to think, and he was better at close combat fighting than she—especially when it came to fending off a fencer. And if he proved to be a suitable distraction, Blademaster would spend more time trying to skin a cat than pin a bug to the wall.

To be fair, though, Adrien was more used to fighting a fencer wielding only one sword and with a sword of his own, but this wasn't fencing. Having to constantly watch his back didn't make matters any easier. Ladybug couldn't just pull the sword from Blademaster's grasp when he held it so tightly, and she must have run into difficulty trying to bind him or she'd have him trussed like a pig for slaughter by now. No, if he wasn't the one to disarm Blademaster, he had to at least loosen Blademaster's grip on those swords. Knowing that, Adrien fought like a wildcat, spinning his staff this way and that, splitting it in two in the blink of an eye and trying to land blows on Blademaster's arms and wrists.

Though Adrien was quick as a cat, Blademaster had the flexibility and skill of a seasoned fencer, and his task was harder than it would have been if Philippe were merely half as good as he believed himself to be. The apparent telekinetic control over the swords didn't help matters, but the fact that fewer and fewer blades remained whole and free did.

Blademaster's attacks became more aggressive and then abruptly ceased as he turned to attack Ladybug. Adrien could only assume that he'd gotten a stiff reminder from Hawk Moth to retrieve their Miraculous. He used his staff to vault over Blademaster and land in front of Ladybug, carefully avoiding her spinning yo-yo. She had been more than ready to defend herself, but he shot her a cocky grin anyway. "Do be careful, my lady," he said. "His swords are sharper than a cat's claws."

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "Use your Cataclysm. We need to trap him or we'll never be able to disarm him."

"Me-ouch! Don't you have any confidence in my abilities?"

"Focus, kitty cat," she stepped away from him and loosed her yo-yo, but Blademaster danced out of the way and the yo-yo caught on an upended foil instead. Ladybug scowled and yanked it back. "We need to deal with this now or he'll go after Ad—the fencers."

Adrien spared a second to look at Ladybug—had she really been about to say his name? He'd never met her as himself—before deciding he'd dwell on that later. Drawing on Plagg's power through his Miraculous, he invoked Chat Noir's infamous destructive power. "Cataclysm!"

Aiming for Blademaster's sword was more likely to nearly get his hand chopped off than anything else, so Adrien dragged his hand along the floor, hoping to trap Blademaster the way he and Ladybug had Sabrina's father when he'd decided to use introduce his own brand of justice to Paris.

He did not need Ladybug's frustrated yell to realize he'd chosen poorly, just this once.

Perhaps he shouldn't have rushed in without waiting to hear if Ladybug had anything else to say.

His power worked perfectly well on things he touched directly, but its power diminished as it spread. It ate through the floor and the subfloor, but it did less well against the layers of concrete and rebar beneath that; although chewed up, nothing was completely gone. He'd created an obstacle course—for all of them—rather than succeeded in trapping Blademaster.

One look at Ladybug told him he wasn't liable to live this one down any time soon.

"I'll, er…." Adrien glanced down at his ring; he was rapidly losing power, and of the two toes remaining on the paw print, one flashed and vanished as he watched. The other would not last much longer. "Back in five minutes," he promised, dashing out. Plagg had not eaten _all_ the cheese in Adrien's bag, although the glutton had gotten close to it.

Adrien barely made it to the locker room before the transformation wore off and an exhausted Plagg spun out of his ring. Adrien wrenched open his locker door, letting Plagg rest on his shoulder as he dug through his bag in search of a container the kwami hadn't gotten into already. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the untouched chèvre. "Eat up," he said, holding it out.

Plagg perked up instantly and made a dive for it. Adrien left him to his feasting, knowing he couldn't be any help to Ladybug until Plagg had regained his energy. It would make matters even worse if he showed his face as Adrien—Blademaster was sure to go after him and Ladybug would be forced to abandon her plans to protect him—but that didn't make waiting any easier.

* * *

"Lucky Charm!" Marinette shouted as she spun her yo-yo up into the air.

A fork dropped into her hands.

A large, ladybug-patterned fork that looked sharper than usual, but still a fork.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" she wondered.

She glanced around, looking for anything that would help her make sense of her newfound weapon. Chat Noir's Cataclysm catastrophe—oh, she hoped Chat Noir was not rubbing off on her, thinking like that—might not have trapped Blademaster, but it _had_ slowed him down. Without being able to fly or make superhuman leaps, he needed to pick his way across the rubble to her, a feat that required more precarious balancing than she was sure was typical in fencing. If she waited until he reached _that_ point, then ran to cut him off _there_ , and used that foil as a rebound, then the fork….

Marinette smiled. "That's it," she whispered.

Without Chat Noir to distract Blademaster, all his attention was on Marinette. This time, she was counting on that. The most direct path to her—and to her Miraculous—required Blademaster to balance on a sharp edge of concrete, and a misstep would cause him to catch his foot in the remains of the crisscrossing support bars. She ran to meet him, easily drawing his attention, so he didn't see her throw her fork at one of the swords that was wedged point down in the remains of the floor. The fork ricocheted off the guard and sped prong first toward Blademaster's hand (the right one; if Chat Noir was wrong about that….).

The fork slipped into a gap between Blademaster's jacket and glove—a loosening resulting from their earlier attacks—and he howled and dropped his blade just as one foot slipped off the concrete and wedged itself between the framework of steel supports. It played out just as she'd envisioned. Marinette dove for the sword, knowing she needed to destroy it to release Hawk Moth's akuma—

—and _screamed_ as Blademaster's other sword sliced into her ear. Her momentum carried her forward, and she'd pitched into him in such a daze that she barely felt his free hand tear out her other earring, but she knew the moment he had. She instantly lost her transformation, and it was ordinary Marinette who scrambled to her feet with one hand clamped over her right ear. She couldn't see Tikki, couldn't see either of her earrings, and Chat Noir had yet to return—although the last was just as well.

Marinette grabbed the cursed sword and dragged it from Blademaster's reach, driving it into the floor so he couldn't just call it back to him, but without Tikki and the Miraculous, she could do little else. "Tikki?" It came out as a whimper, and if Tikki heard, Marinette caught no response. She'd have to search for them later; Blademaster was caught as surely as a mouse in a trap now and had no way of getting the Miraculous to Hawk Moth before Chat Noir came back.

Marinette bit back a sob and raced for cover, blindly picking a door and rushing through. This was why she and Chat Noir were a team; if they didn't work together, things could go terribly wrong. She knew it could be worse, much worse—he hadn't sliced off her ear or her head, for that matter, and he wouldn't remember her true identity when this was over—but she'd lost Tikki. She'd lost her Miraculous.

Ladybug was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to everyone who took the time to review! I can't say how much I appreciate it.

* * *

When Adrien returned, he immediately spotted Blademaster with one foot wedged in the remains of the floor, futilely trying to pull free, and he smirked. Madame Neumann was right; Philippe _did_ need to watch his footing. Trust Ladybug to turn what had nearly been a cat-astrophe on his part into a cat-astrophic success. He alighted gently on a piece of broken concrete jutting out from the centre of the ruin and looked at Blademaster. "Well, aren't you a paw-tiful sight?"

Blademaster growled and swiped at him with his sword, but he only held one now. Adrien spotted the other less than halfway across the remainder of the court and leapt over to it. Ladybug was nowhere in sight. Perhaps _she'd_ needed five minutes after using her Lucky Charm? It must have been quite a fight before that if she hadn't had enough time to cleanse the akuma before leaving.

Adrien waited—Blademaster wasn't going anywhere—and eventually decided it was better to be safe than sorry and used his staff to disarm Blademaster once and for all. It wasn't a fair fight when his opponent couldn't move too far, but accepting Hawk Moth's help negated the need for fair fighting in Adrien's book. Adrien managed to snap the sword so Blademaster wouldn't be able to control it again and then looked around for Ladybug.

She still hadn't returned.

Blademaster must have known what he was thinking because he sneered, "Ladybug is gone!"

"I can see that," Adrien muttered as he activated the video chat option on his staff. Ladybug didn't answer; perhaps he really hadn't given her and her kwami enough time to reenergize?

More waiting proved fruitless, and Chat Noir couldn't just stand there forever.

"Come on, my lady," Adrien called, hoping she was within earshot, "you know I cannot cleanse the akuma myself!"

Nothing.

It wasn't safe to leave Blademaster as he was if it could be helped—not for everyone else, anyway—and it _could_ be helped, at least slightly. Adrien picked up an abandoned mask and then strode over to the akuma-containing sword. He snapped it and waited for the black butterfly to make its escape. He was not Ladybug; he could not reverse the damage that had been done, the evil and all its havoc, but freeing the akuma would still free Philippe from his contract with Hawk Moth. It would not necessarily be the end of Blademaster—Adrien had only ever seen Hawk Moth's victims come back to themselves _after_ Ladybug's cleansing—but he would no longer by guided through the poisoned touch of the akuma.

Adrien easily caught the butterfly in the mask and held it closed. The akumas sent out by Hawk Moth were specific to their hosts and—often—made to prey upon the host in a particular time of weakness. This akuma would not be able to merge with someone else and begin a new contract for Hawk Moth, and Philippe….

Adrien glanced back. Hawk Moth's magic had not yet retreated from Philippe, but if it did, he only needed to prevent Philippe from feeling as he had when Hawk Moth had created this akuma to ensure that he would not be able to host the same one.

There was still no sign of Ladybug.

Blademaster snarled at him. He might not be able to control broken swords, but Adrien had no wish to let him free to find others—or to see how well his power transferred to knives.

Usually, by this point, the damage had been repaired, he and Ladybug had acknowledged their accomplished mission, and they were due to both run off before their transformations ran out. This time….

This time, Ladybug was gone and the mission _wasn't_ accomplished. Adrien needed to find a way to secure Blademaster considerably better than he was now or none of the fencers would be safe, himself included once the transformation wore off—and that wasn't even considering what Blademaster might do to any civilians who got in his way.

Adrien glanced around, wishing he had Ladybug's analytical mind to put together a feasible plan in a hurry. He saw nothing that looked remotely useful. He couldn't very well pin Blademaster down with the broken swords, and short of managing to knock him out….

The groan of twisting metal and the grind of shifting concrete was the only warning Adrien had that Blademaster was pulling free. He set the trapped akuma on the floor, split his staff into two, and spun into action, taking advantage of the fact that Blademaster still had limited mobility.

Akuma victims were resilient, typically managing to stand up to any beating Adrien could give them even without Hawk Moth whispering in their minds, but if Ladybug were here, she would have had no trouble tying up Blademaster with her yo-yo now.

Unfortunately, she still didn't show up.

Adrien retreated long enough to assure himself that the akuma was still trapped and to pick up the remains of Madame Neumann's torn jacket. He tackled Blademaster and managed to tie his arms, but this was one cat fight Adrien couldn't finish by himself. He needed Ladybug. At the very least, he needed some assurance that someone else would be able to hold Blademaster until the akuma could be cleansed.

His Miraculous beeped in warning.

Adrien kept dancing and attacking, keeping one eye on the akuma—it had managed to shift the mask by an inch, perhaps, but not wriggle free of it—and the other on Blademaster, who was favouring the leg he'd managed to free. Adrien took advantage of the weakness and by some stroke of luck managed to shift the rubble enough to trap Blademaster again, pinning the uninjured foot underneath a concrete slab once it was tangled in a piece of rebar. As he bent to tighten his makeshift rope on Blademaster's wrists, he noticed something clenched in the man's fingers.

Another beep. A glance at his ring told Adrien he didn't have long, but after securing the knot he managed to pry open Blademaster's fist and take the prize for himself.

It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at, but he soon recognized it as Ladybug's earrings. Her Miraculous. Which meant….

"She's gone," Adrien said dumbly, repeating what Blademaster had told him earlier. He sprang back, snatching up the mask with the trapped akuma and clutching it like a lifeline. He took a moment to study the rubble again—Blademaster wasn't going anywhere now, despite his wriggling—and spotted a fork that must have been Ladybug's Lucky Charm. At least that hadn't disappeared with her, since they'd need it later, but what he needed was….

 _There_. Adrien's eyes were drawn to a flicker of movement in the rubble. He carefully reached down to shift a small slab of concrete and found himself staring at something not at all unlike Plagg.

It was Ladybug's kwami.

* * *

Marinette stared down at the sink and focused on trying to breathe and regain her composure. She'd found the women's washroom (thankfully empty) and had cleaned up as best she could. The cut into her right earlobe made her realize just how lucky she was that Blademaster had not been aiming elsewhere; it was clean and sharp, nearly enough the carve the Miraculous from her ear, but although her earring was gone—although both earrings were gone—her earlobe was still mostly intact. It would heal, given time.

Marinette still had a wad of tissues pressed to her ear, but she thought it had stopped bleeding now; the bleeding had never been as bad as she'd imagined it might be in the first place. That didn't make the throbbing pain any less, though, or make questions any easier to answer.

Chat Noir would be expecting Ladybug's return; he didn't know what had happened to her. She couldn't waltz back out there to find Tikki and retrieve the Miraculous when he was there, and she certainly wasn't in any shape to return as herself if Blademaster was still there.

She should have waited. She should have been more careful. She should have done _something_ differently so that she wasn't in this situation.

But there was no use crying over spilled milk—Chat Noir _was_ rubbing off on her!—so Marinette squared her shoulders and examined her face in the mirror. She had no way to secure a makeshift bandage to her ear, so she carefully peeled off what she could of the wad, wincing as it tugged a bit too hard on the tender skin and sent out a spike of pain. She pulled her hair out of its pigtails and carefully arranged it over her ears. Hopefully, unless she ran into someone nosy like Chloé or curious like Alya, no one would question the change—assuming she actually ran into anyone she knew.

Of course, the only real danger she was facing was running into Adrien—she didn't know anyone else who practiced here at this time—but with any luck he was well away with the rest of them. She had enough trouble trying to talk to him without the distraction of a throbbing wound, and she didn't want to invite any questions she couldn't answer.

Marinette moved slowly, listening and trying to figure out whether or not Chat Noir was gone. She couldn't hear him, but that kitty cat could be as quiet as a mouse if he tried to be. Of course, he usually wasn't, and it was with that certainty in mind that she peeked out of the doors and into the practice area.

Chat Noir was nowhere in sight. Blademaster _was_ there, which thankfully meant he hadn't escaped. He was tied up now and his sword broken, so he would no longer be under Hawk Moth's control, but since she hadn't been there to cleanse the akuma….

Since she hadn't been there, the damage remained. Marinette bit her lip and crept out toward the place where Blademaster had first been caught, giving him a wide berth as she did so and trying to ignore his growls and taunts. If she could just get Tikki and the Miraculous, then Ladybug could find Chat Noir and she could cleanse the akuma and erase the evil it had caused—at least, she hoped there was still a way to do that. For all she knew, her Lucky Charm had vanished when she'd lost the transformation, and the akuma could be anywhere by now.

"Tikki?" Marinette called softly as she knelt at the edge of the destruction. "Tikki, where are you?"

Knowing she had to be quick didn't make matters any easier for Marinette. Tikki didn't respond, and Marinette couldn't see her—or the Miraculous or the Lucky Charm—anywhere, despite sifting through the rubble. She edged as near to Blademaster as she dared, wary of him even though he was bound, but she could still see nothing. She kept telling herself that the earrings were small and would be easy to miss and the fork had probably already disappeared, but Tikki?

Tikki should have come to her, _would_ have come to her, if she'd been able.

There was nothing for it; Marinette would need to find Chat Noir and get his help. He certainly had better eyes than she did, and perhaps he could see something she couldn't. At the very least, he might know if there had been another akuma victim who might have been able to retrieve her Miraculous and be heading to Hawk Moth in Blademaster's stead. (She hoped that notion as ridiculous, since Blademaster very clearly wasn't freed, but if another victim didn't benefit from any havoc Blademaster might wreak….) Still, Hawk Moth surely knew one of their Miraculous was nearly in his grasp even if his connection with Blademaster had since been broken. And if Tikki and the Miraculous really _were_ on their way to Hawk Moth, then she would have to tell Chat Noir the truth, because if Hawk Moth finally got his hands on….

No. That didn't bear thinking about.

Marinette heard voices before she saw anyone, and that gave her enough time to get out of the rubble and run for cover. She stopped as soon as she could, her suddenly-pounding heart doing nothing for the pain in her head. She'd have to look after it properly once she got home, and at the rate she was moving…. She'd have to do that before she went looking for Chat Noir.

It was unlikely she'd find him now anyway—chances were very good that his transformation had worn off again if he wasn't already long gone in the first place—so waiting to look for him didn't necessarily mean the trail would get any colder, but if Blademaster managed to get free….

Marinette took a deep breath. No. She had to trust that Chat Noir had the situation in hand. With any luck, he'd called for assistance to get Blademaster escorted somewhere where there wasn't anything sharp, somewhere he could wait it out until they could fix this. And they would, somehow. She could get through this. She just needed to take things one step at a time. She needed to treat her injury, and while she was doing that….

Marinette pulled out her phone and dialled Alya's number. If anyone knew where Chat Noir had last been seen, it would be Alya, and she might have info about any recent akuma victims, too. Every sighting went up on Alya's Ladyblog, by others if not herself, and Marinette had never been more thankful to have her best friend looking into any and all things surrounding Ladybug and Chat Noir.

* * *

Fortunately for Marinette, her parents were busy with the shop when she got home, so she had no trouble sneaking upstairs. She'd spent less than five minutes in the washroom trying to tend to her ear, however, before Alya phoned her back.

" _Marinette? Did you take a look around before you left?"_

Marinette's heart jumped into her throat. Had Alya found something? In her haste, had she left some clue about her identity? "Take a look at what?" She'd said little during her previous call, mostly just informing Alya of the fight and asking if she knew anything else about it. Since she hadn't, Marinette had put to rest her fears about another akuma victim. Alya surely would have heard if Chat Noir was chasing one through the city. But if no one was on the way to Hawk Moth with Tikki and her Miraculous, where were they?

" _The court is half destroyed,"_ Alya said, _"and people are saying that the villain—Blademaster—is locked in a room in one of the wings they blocked off. Sounds like a closet, really, from what I can gather. I had to bring Manon with me, but I needed to see it for myself. Can you believe Blademaster wasn't restored to his previous state? That all this damage is still here? This is_ huge _. It's the first time I know of that Ladybug and Chat Noir haven't been able to fix everything."_

Marinette bit her lip, but this wasn't going to be the first time she'd lied to her friend. "I ran before they showed up," she admitted. "I was worried about Adrien—" that part was true, at least "—but I knew I couldn't do anything to help. I didn't want to call you until I knew I was safe. Besides, I knew you were babysitting Manon." Marinette should have been the one babysitting her, in truth, but Alya had volunteered to step in—after checking with Manon's parents, of course—to give Marinette time to talk to Adrien.

She wasn't sure what would have happened if she _had_ been babysitting. How long would it have taken before she realized she needed to go? How long would it have taken to convince Manon to let Alya fill in for her? She wasn't sure what excuse she would have given Alya, but she was sure Alya would have been willing. She might have had a few questions about Marinette's eagerness to go once she'd returned, though.

" _You couldn't have known this time would be different. Are you at home? I've posted a few pictures of battle site on my blog, but it's really something you need to see in person to appreciate."_

"I doubt they want a lot of people there gawking," Marinette pointed out, trying to bide her time. She'd put Alya on speaker by now. She'd already finished bandaging her ear as best she could, but hiding the wound with her hair was proving to be another problem. Maybe she should just shift her pigtails forward so they covered her ears? It didn't suit her, but how else was she to explain what she'd done to her ear? Marinette frowned and left her hair hanging loose. Perhaps she should tell Alya a portion of the truth—that her earring had been ripped out—and see if she had any ideas.

" _Most people can't get close,"_ Alya acknowledged, _"but some of the people here follow my blog and let me in to get a closer look, as long as I'm accompanied by someone else. Nino came here when he heard—he was looking for Adrien—and he watched Manon for me. I was only gone about five minutes but I think she likes him better. Apparently he promised to buy her ice cream if she kept quiet, so we'll be doing that before I take her home again."_ Marinette could practically see Alya rolling her eyes. _"Anyway, I'm back out now, so if you can make it here, I'll pull a few strings and get you in with me."_

Marinette hadn't expected that, despite having witnessed Alya record as many sightings of Ladybug and Chat Noir as possible. "Has anyone found anything?" she asked carefully. "I mean, since the damage is still there, something might be different. Is there anything that you've seen? Maybe…maybe something left behind?"

" _Nothing yet, but there's a lot to go through. A clue might still be uncovered. Come on, Marinette. Unless you're going to be so bold as to go to Adrien's house alone and ask to see him, you should meet me. This isn't something we get to see every day."_

Marinette laughed nervously, since both she and Alya knew quite well she wouldn't be able to summon the courage to ask to be let in to the Agreste residence. "All right," she said. "Just give me a couple of minutes. I was fiddling with my earring when the attack began and I…kinda ripped it out of my ear by mistake. I had to bandage it, and it looks silly."

" _Just think of it as a badge of courage and don't worry about it. People probably won't even notice. You were there when the fight began, that's all."_

That was more true than Alya knew, but…. Marinette hesitated, then pulled her hair back into her usual hairstyle. The one lock of hair that fell in front of her ear covered some of the bandage, and Blademaster would remember nothing once he was returned to normal. No one would know what her injury meant even if they did notice it. No one else knew Ladybug's transformation depended on her earrings. Well, Chat Noir, but unless he knew what had happened to her….

Marinette dropped her hands and looked in the mirror. He was going to find out anyway. She'd need his help to get Tikki and the Miraculous back from wherever they had ended up. He'd once told her that he'd keep her secret if she told him who she was, and she'd believed him, she had, but….

She'd thought the masks made things easier for them. Secrets were easier to keep when you were the only one who knew it. But knowing, just the two of them, would be easier in its own way, she supposed. They needn't fear being unmasked if it was just the two of them, far from prying eyes or cameras, and if a situation like this ever arose again, it would be easy for them to contact each other.

But knowing led to complacency. A simple slip of the tongue, perhaps, or making the assumption that something was fine just because it was every other time it had been checked—only for something to go wrong that one time. She knew it could happen. Her father had failed to surprise her mother more than once because of something like that.

In truth, though, that had never been her greatest fear, not when they would do their best to keep the secret between them. It should be, she knew. Hawk Moth would no doubt find some way to discover the truth, and he already knew what their Miraculous were. Knowing who they were would make it easier for him to obtain them. As much as Marinette hoped that never happened, hoped he'd never learn the truth, she wasn't naïve enough to believe it wouldn't, someday. Quite frankly, she was lucky Blademaster wasn't free to report back to Hawk Moth.

But with this, between her and Chat Noir? It wasn't the same as the fear she'd felt when Alya—Lady WiFi—had tried to unmask her. Not entirely, anyway. She didn't fear the broader consequences of the truth coming out when it was just the two of them. No, with him, she feared judgement. She worried about what Chat Noir would think of Marinette. Ladybug…. She felt like someone else, someone who wasn't much more than a mask Marinette wore. Tikki had said that Ladybug's courage still came from within her, and perhaps she was right, but Marinette could never seem to find that courage when she wasn't Ladybug. The responsibility, the thrill, the anonymity…. Being Ladybug gave Marinette the opportunity to be more, _demanded_ she be more, and she rose to meet that challenge because she'd been chosen.

She wasn't sure if she'd be able to maintain that when she was alone with Chat Noir once he knew the truth. The mask was simple, but it offered protection. She was Ladybug. It didn't need to be more complicated than that. Ladybug was a heroine; she didn't need to be Marinette, the ninth grader who worried about school, giggled with friends, sometimes shirked her duties at the shop, and all too often daydreamed about one of the boys in her class. Ladybug was confident, smart, and skilled. She didn't need to be the same girl who stuttered when she tried to speak to Adrien, could hardly find the time to do her assignments, and tripped in class.

Marinette sighed. Ordinary Marinette seemed so different from Ladybug, even if they weren't. Ladybug was friends with Chat Noir. She trusted him, teased him, had an easy relationship with him. But what if he didn't like Marinette? What if he didn't like the girl beneath the mask?

"I can't worry about that now," Marinette told herself. "I'll meet Alya and then…." And then what? Without knowing who Chat Noir truly was, she had no way to contact him. "I'll figure out something," she muttered. She had to.

* * *

"It's camembert," Plagg said as he did something Adrien had never thought he'd willingly do: offer to part with his emergency cheese supply. "It's good. You should have some."

Ladybug's kwami had exhausted herself from both the transformation and trying to wriggle out from beneath the rubble, and she'd made no protest when Adrien had scooped her up. Even though he suspected Ladybug would try to come back, he hadn't dared leave Tikki or the Miraculous behind where just anyone might find them any more than he did Ladybug's Lucky Charm. Plagg had still had enough energy to maintain the transformation, but Adrien had changed back anyway and left both kwami, the Lucky Charm, and the trapped akuma in the bottom of his bag until he got home, with the earrings stashed safely in his pocket. Despite his father's fame and his own small modelling career, it was still much easier to blend in as Adrien Agreste than as Chat Noir, and he'd thought it best to hang around just long enough to assure himself that someone was able to wrestle Blademaster into a locked room until Ladybug could be found.

He'd already secured the akuma in a glass jar he'd swiped from the kitchen; as far as anyone else knew, he needed the jam jar for a class project. Now he'd locked himself in his room and was watching the two kwami interact. Tikki muttered something unintelligible, at least to Adrien's ears, but Plagg stuffed the chunk of cheese into his mouth.

"Plagg!"

"She doesn't like it," Plagg said around his full mouth. He swallowed and added, "She can't appreciate the fine taste."

"How much do _you_ even taste? Sometimes you swallow it whole!"

Plagg burped but reached for more cheese. "She'll have a cookie," he said instead.

Adrien frowned but went to fetch some from the secret stash one of the cooks had put away for him for when he 'needed something sweet'; they needed to get Tikki back on her feet if they were to return her to Ladybug. The prospect put a smile on his face. He'd finally know the identity of the lady beneath the mask! He was sure she wasn't _really_ five thousand years old—he rather suspected she had been chosen like he had been—but she was just so…. Words didn't do her justice. She took his breath away, every time. And soon he'd know who she was!

Adrien approached his room with a full tin of cookies sneaked from the kitchen, but his steps slowed as a terrible thought struck him. He desperately wanted to know Ladybug's identity, but she wanted anonymity. He knew that. She'd made that all too clear after the fight with Lady WiFi. She thought they should keep their identities secret, even between themselves.

This was the perfect time to find out the truth, but he couldn't bear the thought of her being angry that he'd taken advantage of the situation to do just that.

Not that he thought she'd be angry right away, of course—he hoped she'd be relieved and thankful that Tikki and the Miraculous were safe—but if she didn't trust him as much as she once had, or if she feared knowing might affect their judgement and work in the field even if he assured her again he wouldn't tell anyone….

He didn't want to destroy the relationship they already had.

He wanted to know the truth, but he wanted her to be the one to choose—or at least agree—to tell him. He didn't want to force her into it. He didn't want to give her any reasons to regret telling each other their secrets.

Adrien entered his room again with a heavy heart, securing the door and placing the tin of cookies on the desk next to Ladybug's kwami. He picked out a chocolate chip cookie and offered it to Tikki, who blinked wearily at it for a moment before taking it and eating.

The effect was immediately noticeable. Tikki perked up, eyes opening wider and antennae quivering. She propelled herself over to the tin and grabbed another cookie and was half through it when she turned around to get her first good look at him.

Adrien brushed the cookie crumbs she'd spewed at him off his shirt. "Feeling better?"

Tikki nodded shyly, saying a quiet, "Yes, thank you," before stuffing the rest of the cookie into her mouth. Adrien glanced at Plagg, who was halfway through the cheese wheel and showing no signs of slowing down. He sighed; one advantage of having a father who did not pay too much attention to him was that he never asked why Adrien bought so much cheese.

Adrien would rather have had to scramble for excuses.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Adrien asked, looking at Tikki. "Is Ladybug all right?"

"What he means is," Plagg said from his place on the dwindling remains of the cheese wheel, "who is she? He wants to know because he's in lo—"

"Plagg!"

The kwami shot Adrien what was probably supposed to be an innocent look. "What? It's _true_. She's the girl of your dr—"

"That's not important right now," Adrien insisted, but he felt his cheeks warming. Tikki made a choked sound again, and Adrien flushed a deeper red because he knew she'd noticed and…. He needed to focus. "Tikki, do you know if she's okay?"

"I think so," Tikki answered slowly. "Blademaster tore away her Miraculous and I was thrown into the rubble. It shifted and trapped me before I could escape. I-I thought I heard her calling me, but…." The kwami glanced away. "I didn't have the energy to shout back."

Adrien swallowed, remembering the scream he'd heard while in the locker room. He'd attributed it to someone walking in on Ladybug's fight with Blademaster before making a hasty retreat and had clearly been a fool to do so. He remembered how Blademaster had fought and he knew what Tikki did not say. Ladybug might still be on her feet, but wherever she was, she was injured. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as he feared—she had still managed to separate Blademaster from the sword containing the akuma, and he had not seen a trail of blood—but they'd been lucky enough in the past to escape anything more than bumps, bruises, and scrapes.

At least, that was true as far as he knew. He did wonder if that was truly the case, as when they'd fought Timebreaker the future Ladybug had been quite adamant in her warnings and given him more than one worrying look when she thought he wasn't looking, but he'd thought it best not to ask. As far as he'd been able to tell, when they fought together, they were able to guard each other's backs.

Except this time, he hadn't been there for her when she'd needed him.

"It's not your fault," he told Tikki. "It's mine." Plagg snorted, and Adrien ignored him except to take the cheese away from him. His rounded belly told Adrien he'd had more than enough anyway, and Plagg's yawn undermined all his protests to the contrary. "I'm going to get you back to her," Adrien promised.

"That'll be easy," Plagg pointed out. "Tikki knows who she is."

"I know," Adrien said before Tikki had a chance to respond, "but Ladybug wants her secret kept, and I have to respect her wishes. She should tell me who she is because she _wants_ to tell me."

Plagg muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "You're still not thinking clearly." Adrien decided to ignore him; if he didn't, he might change his mind.

"But if I don't tell you who she is," Tikki began slowly, "how will you get me back to her?"

"She has to know you're safe first," Adrien said as he turned on the computer. "If she's anything like me, she's keeping tabs on the people who are keeping tabs on her, so there's one sure way to let her know you're okay." Plagg was half asleep by now, but Tikki still gave Adrien a questioning look. Adrien opened up the web browser and went to the page that was first in his bookmarks: the Ladyblog.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Merry Christmas/Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to everyone who's been taking the time to review.

* * *

Adrien knew Alya was there when he arrived at the school—the pictures on her blog had made that much clear—but he couldn't spot her in the crowd. News of the fight had spread and it looked to him like most people were just hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, so they could tell others what they'd seen. He supposed people were more curious than usual, with Ladybug unable to erase the damage done. At least the lack of chatter about Blademaster—nothing more substantial than rumours and whispers, at least—meant he hadn't escaped.

Plagg and Tikki were tucked safely into pockets inside his jacket, so when Adrien spotted Nino, he waved and moved to join him. "Have they found out anything new?" he asked when he arrived.

Nino shook his head. "Not yet. You probably know as much as we do: that Ladybug and Chat Noir were here to deal with the villain but couldn't reverse everything like they usually do. Unless you noticed something different before you managed to get away?"

Adrien shook his head. "It all seemed as normal as it ever is off the start." He paused, then took the plunge. "Alya's still around somewhere, isn't she? I saw she had pictures on her blog already."

"She's up near the front," Nino said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the main doors. "Still with the kid she's babysitting but trying to learn more, as far as I know. I think she's kinda hoping to stick around to see if Chat Noir or Ladybug come back to reset everything but I don't think Manon's going to let her get out of ice cream." Adrien shot his friend a quizzical look, so Nino added, "The girl she's watching. Passed her off too me for a few minutes while she went inside and I promised Manon ice cream later if she listened to me."

Adrien couldn't quite bite back his chuckle. "You had to bribe her to watch her for, what, five minutes?"

"Hey, it worked. Don't knock it. You wanna join us for that ice cream?"

"I'll have to see. Might have a photoshoot." He'd told Nino earlier today that he was free, but what he said now wasn't entirely a lie. If Alya saw Chat Noir, she'd try to document it—a fact he was counting on. He still wasn't sure what he was going to say in response to some of her inevitable questions, but talking to her as Chat Noir was the only way he could think to get a message to Ladybug. He wouldn't put it past her to try to find the source of an anonymous message, and that carried too much of a risk that Ladybug would disregard it. "I'm waiting to hear if it's rescheduled."

"Have you at least called to find out?"

"I didn't want to pester them. They have a lot to…." Adrien trailed off as Nino held up a hand.

"Listen up, dude, to a piece of advice that will serve you well in the world." Nino looked at him with all seriousness. "Pester. Rattle their chains. The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

Adrien smiled. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt to at least try them," he conceded. He had no intention of phoning his photographer or anyone else, of course, but it _was_ a plan to let Alya know about Chat Noir. Anything to draw her away from the crowd.

Adrien knew the surrounding streets well enough to know a relatively quiet place for Chat Noir to be spotted. He could hear sirens in the distance, something he might have checked out had Alya's blog not been clear of anything unusual besides the fight with Blademaster. Knowing Alya would be using her phone to post updates of that on her blog, he sent her a quick text message saying he thought he'd seen a glimpse of the hero. He was fairly sure she had chased down rumours from considerably less reliable sources than him, so he transformed and used his staff to get a good perch above the street. It jutted out from the building like a flagpole, and he crouched far enough above eye level to avoid some notice and waited.

It came as no surprise that Alya was looking up as much as around when she rounded the corner, and she spotted him in no time.

"Chat Noir!" Alya had her phone in her hand and was recording their conversation within seconds—exactly as he'd expected. "Why are you here? Are you going to tell us why things are different this time?"

"Someone put a bug in my ear," he said, dropping to the ground beside her and shortening his staff back its baton size. Ladybug was used enough to his puns that she ought to put two and two together if she was looking for something, and he had no doubt she would be looking. _Ladybug. Earrings._ He waved his right hand dismissively, although the action was more to showcase his ring with the Miraculous than anything else. He needed to drive the point home.

Alya chuckled. "Ladybug," she guessed.

"Friend of hers, actually. Cute little thing." _Tikki._ "Gave me the _feline_ I should reassure you that you're all safe—" _She's fine._ "—and that Ladybug and I will get together and set things right as soon as we can. It's nothing to worry about." _We can meet. Don't worry. Ladybug will be back in no time._

"But why was this time different? Why wasn't it fixed right away?"

"I had my paws full," he admitted with a shrug. "Sharpened my claws at the wrong time and spilled a bit of milk, but it's nothing worth crying over." In a loud whisper, he confided, "It's not always like it was depicted in that statue. Sometimes cats don't land on their feet." He hoped Ladybug would be able to figure that one out, but the statue dedicated to the two of them was the easiest landmark to reference that wouldn't seem out of place—or be in too populated a place for an inconspicuous little rendezvous.

Alya gaped at him, perhaps because he'd as good as said he'd been the one to mess up. That didn't jive with his usual cocky, confident front, but better people believe that than discover the truth.

"Look," he said, spinning his tail around with his right hand, "this mess? _My_ mess?" Might as well admit that; there would be fewer people coming up with alternative reasons for its existence that way. "It's not because I was on the losing side of a cat fight. I'm going to meet Ladybug tonight—" if she received and deciphered this message, at least "—and we'll just make sure everything's up to scratch for both of us." He smiled at Alya and winked. "If the cat's not away, the mice can't play."

Alya frowned. "Why consent to an interview now? You must have known you were going to be seen, and…." She trailed off as Adrien's smile grew to a grin.

"I can't let the cat out of the bag, now can I?" He chuckled and, without giving her a chance to ask anything else, turned and scampered.

* * *

Marinette couldn't see Alya when she arrived, but she spotted Manon above the ground and, when she got closer, realized the little girl was sitting on Nino's shoulders. "Hey, Nino, Manon," she said. "Where did Alya go?"

"She ran off that way," he said, pointing down the street.

"She wouldn't let me come," Manon pouted, "even though it was something about Chat Noir."

"What?" Marinette jerked her head back to look in the direction Nino had pointed. "I'm going to, um…."

"Go. I've got this covered."

Marinette shot Nino a grateful smile and took off at a run. She rounded the corner and smacked into Adrien, sending them both tumbling to the ground. She knew her face was beet red as she tried to stutter out an apology. "Ah, um, s-sorry, I, uh…."

He laughed and offered a hand to help her to her feet. She accepted, hoping it didn't make her face flush a deeper red. "Are you all right?" Marinette nodded furiously, not trusting herself to speak. Adrien chuckled again and Marinette forced her head to stop bobbing, but there was no ill will in his laughter. "I'm sorry," he said, and she got the impression he'd been laughing at himself as much as at her. "I should have watched where I was going." He smiled and stepped to the side. "But if you're in such a rush, I suppose I'd better let you go."

"No! I mean, uh, that, well, I…." Marinette wished she could speak even two sentences to Adrien without putting her foot in her mouth. She _didn't_ want to leave, but he was right: she had to go if there was even a chance Chat Noir was still around. "I'll, um, I mean, ah, yes, I should, but, uh, maybe I'll, er…run into you again? Not run into you run into you!" she quickly added. "Just…see you. Around. Sometime. Again. Right?" She clamped her teeth together with a smile, but a nervous laugh still escaped her throat.

Adrien smiled at her again. "Sure."

"Maybe," Marinette added in a fit of bravery, "tonight? We could, er, see that movie that we, um, didn't quite, y'know, actually see last time." Unless Hawk Moth made another move to draw out Chat Noir, Marinette would have to give up her search until morning anyway—and if Hawk Moth _did_ try something, she'd know through Alya sooner rather than later and could make her escape under the pretense of one crisis or another.

Adrien's smile vanished, and Marinette's heart dropped. "Tonight doesn't really work for me," he said slowly.

"That's okay! Tonight didn't work for me, either!" She sounded like an idiot, overly chipper and already contradicting herself, but she knew his schedule. He had nothing planned for tonight. Nothing regular, at any rate, and she'd overheard him telling Nino in class earlier today that he was free after fencing. "But, uh, yeah, I, um, I should go." She pointed, gave another nervous giggle and a wave, and then fled. She thought she heard him calling after her, but she couldn't face him after that.

She'd made a complete fool of herself.

When Marinette finally slowed, she couldn't see Alya anywhere. She pulled out her phone to send a quick message to her friend when a little voice said, "You really should pretend he's Chat Noir when you try talking to him."

Marinette screeched and dropped her phone. Tikki's head peeked out from beneath Marinette's jacket. Marinette cupped her hands and brought them close to her face as Tikki settled into them. "Tikki?" she whispered. "Where have you been?"

Tikki glanced in the direction Marinette had come. "I was trapped until Chat Noir freed me," she answered. "He found me and your Miraculous. He left a message for you with Alya."

Marinette blinked. "He left a message for _me_?"

"For Ladybug," Tikki clarified.

Marinette frowned. "But…didn't you just tell him who I was?"

"He…." Tikki paused. "He didn't want me to."

"But…." She knew he wanted to know. She supposed he could have changed his mind, but she would've bet that curiosity would have killed that cat if he gave it the opportunity. "Why not? That would be easier. And faster."

"He wanted you to choose to tell him."

Despite herself, Marinette laughed. "He's an idiot," she said, but the gesture was strangely heart-warming. Chat Noir meant well. "Who is he, Tikki? Do I know him? We need to talk, either way. Is he back in that crowd?" She wasn't even sure when Tikki had come back, although she knew quite well Tikki was smart enough to keep quiet if it _had_ been in the crowd.

Tikki hesitated.

"You _do_ know who he is, don't you? He can't have maintained his transformation for that long."

"He didn't," Tikki said slowly. "Marinette, Chat Noir was right about one thing. You should not hear this from me. And you should both think very carefully before you make your decision."

"Tikki, we don't have time for this. We still need to find the akuma—"

"Chat Noir has it," she said. "He'll bring it, your Miraculous, and the Lucky Charm when he meets you tonight at the statue dedicated to you both. That's what he wants; it's why he left the message. He didn't know you would be close enough that I could come to you without being seen."

The message, whatever it was, couldn't have been that clear or the statue would be swarmed by followers of Alya's blog, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heroes when they weren't fighting to take down a new villain.

Marinette picked up her phone, meaning to check Alya's blog but noticing that she had a missed call and a new text message on it from Alya. It informed Marinette she must check out the Ladyblog—not mentioning Chat Noir but with an urgency that was unusual even for Alya—and inviting her out for ice cream. Marinette ordinarily would have been tempted, but at the words _Adrien's coming_ , words that would ordinarily make her reply immediately and with far too much detail of her future dreams, Marinette felt her heart clench in her chest.

 _Can't_ , she typed back. _Getting an earache. Think I just need to go back home and rest._

The response was almost immediate: _Adrien's coming. I have painkillers in my purse._

Marinette groaned. Alya knew her well enough to know that, barring hospitalization or getting caught in an attack by the newest villain—and maybe not even the first—Marinette would push through anything to have a chance to be with Adrien.

Of course, that had been before she'd put her foot in her mouth in the most embarrassing manner.

Again.

She called Alya, who picked up on the first ring. _"What's wrong, Marinette? What aren't you telling me? It's not just an earache holding you back."_

"I can't…." Marinette hesitated. "I can't face him yet. Alya, I'm so embarrassed. I ran into him— _literally_ ran into him—and then I was so flustered I kept jumbling my words and…." She tried to ignore Tikki, who was giving her an almost pitying look.

" _Adrien, you mean."_ Alya must have been moving, because the background noise faded on her end. Wherever she had gone to meet Chat Noir, Marinette had missed the turn and missed Alya completely—not to mention Chat Noir himself—and Alya was already back with the others.

"He said no," Marinette said in a small voice. "I asked him to the movies, like we'd planned, except with a lot more, um…."

" _Um, uh, er, I, uh…."_

Despite herself, a small, desperate laugh escaped Marinette. "Unfortunately. Adrien was really nice about it. He didn't even say no outright, but I know that's what he meant."

" _I'd ditch the boys so_ we _could go for ice cream, but it only came up because Nino promised Manon some before I took her home. I'll feel out the situation when I'm there; maybe you misinterpreted it. You don't tend to think when you're around Adrien. Don't panic until I report back, all right?"_

"I won't," Marinette promised. Her relief over finding Tikki—well, Tikki finding her—and the puzzle of Chat Noir should serve as sufficient distractions. Maybe Adrien just didn't want to go out after his encounter with Blademaster.

Although that theory kinda went out the window, considering he was going for ice cream with the others.

" _I'm holding you to that,"_ Alya warned. _"As a distraction, check out the video I uploaded to my blog. I actually got an interview with Chat Noir. Me! I mean, I think he sought me out, but I haven't figured out why. I need to sit down and analyze it, but it sounded…off. Like he was trying to say something else, something I wasn't hearing."_

"Like a code?" Or a hidden message. It didn't surprise her that Chat Noir followed Alya's blog. Even if he didn't know her otherwise, she had no doubt that he was like her and had scouted out every report he could find that even remotely pertained to the two of them or the attacks. They weren't always lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to discover the villain—and the motive, which was inevitably a cue to what Hawk Moth had used to form his little agreements—before the damage was too great.

And then there were days like today, when she had practically been on top of the latest victim and Chat Noir hadn't been far behind, judging by how quickly he'd shown up.

" _Maybe. Maybe just double meanings hidden in plain sight. But you can always see if you can puzzle it out for me."_

Marinette chuckled. "I can't make any promises. Figuring out things like that is your forte, not mine."

" _So trust me to figure out the_ real _reason Adrien turned you down, okay?"_

Marinette sighed. "Okay. And thank you. I'll talk to you later?"

" _As soon as I know the truth,"_ Alya promised.

Marinette hung up and looked at Tikki. "You don't need to say it again," she said as Tikki opened her mouth. "Talking to Adrien like I talk to Chat Noir is just…." She shook her head. "If you know who he really is, you should know why you can't compare him to Adrien."

Tikki's mouth closed, but a moment later she opened it again. "Watch his message," she advised, "and meet him tonight, and if you decide to let the truth be known, let Ladybug be the one to tell him who she is because she wants to, not because she has to."

Marinette stared at her kwami incredulously for a moment. "You like him," she realized. "You think _I'll_ like him, that we'll be able to be friends if he knows—as if that won't set Alya after me with questions and maybe even ruin any chance I have with Adrien, if I haven't done that already. Tikki, it's not like I've never met Chat Noir. I know how he is. You don't have to convince me he's a nice person." Cocky, reckless, and prone to making puns and flirting with Ladybug, but a nice person nonetheless.

Tikki shook her head slowly. "Marinette, you know Chat Noir, just as he knows Ladybug. You don't know the person who's really behind the mask. You've never stopped long enough to look."

Marinette frowned. "Is he really that different?"

"Are you?" Tikki countered. "He still is who he is; Plagg makes no more changes to him than I do to you. But the face you show the world—"

"—doesn't show all of me," Marinette finished slowly. "Tikki, what are you trying to tell me?"

"You don't need to fear the truth for that reason. The boy wearing the mask and the boy beneath the mask are the same, and he truly cares for Ladybug. That really is why I didn't tell him who you were, Marinette. He thought you wouldn't want me to. He wasn't just looking for a challenge."

"I didn't think that," Marinette protested. Sure, she wouldn't put it past Chat Noir to turn small things into games or competitions between them, or even just a puzzle for himself, but he'd know what her loss of Tikki and her Miraculous meant. He could become serious in an instant if the situation called for it.

"Don't judge him by his mask. You are better than that."

Perhaps Tikki was right, and that _was_ what she was doing. If Chat Noir's light-hearted flirting and cockiness could be dropped as easily as a switch was flipped, maybe they were part of the mask he wore. Granted, it all seemed genuine enough; he just knew when there wasn't time for flirting or puns, and his cockiness gave way to real bravery—or sometimes real stupidity, depending on the situation—when it was time to act and not just banter. It wasn't all a mask, not entirely. It couldn't be.

But perhaps his occasional recklessness, especially when it came to her safety, wasn't just due to a general belief in his own invincibility.

Maybe she wasn't just seeing what he showed her but also only seeing what she _wanted_ to see. Chat Noir was nice, he really was, and if he weren't so cocky maybe she _would_ have responded to all his attempts to flirt with her, but with her heart set on Adrien….

Although if Chat Noir really did want to get to know her better in that way, it certainly explained a few comments she'd gotten from his copycat that one time, and it _really_ explained his behaviour when he'd been hit by that arrow…. And it added a whole new depth to his character, what with his accepting her terms to keep their secrets even between themselves—and taking it to this extent.

"Tikki," Marinette said slowly, "when you say he _cares_ for Ladybug…." She didn't need to finish. What she'd taken for harmless flirting was clearly more than that. She sighed. "All right. I'll watch his message and meet him tonight, but I don't see how he thinks that'll let me keep my secret if I wanted to. He can see in the dark."

"You always trust him in battle; you can trust him in this, too."

Tikki was right; she did trust Chat Noir. She trusted him with her life—she'd had to—and he'd never failed her before. She might have mixed feelings about letting him know the truth about her—what Tikki said hadn't helped, however she'd meant it—but this fiasco drove home the point that this lack of knowledge was a _major_ flaw in their arrangement. At the very least, they needed to agree on a way to contact each other if something happened. At most….

Well, at most, Chat Noir had already promised he wouldn't tell anyone who she was, and she didn't doubt his word. He'd never given her a reason to, and he had as much to lose as she if Hawk Moth ever discovered the truth.

* * *

Adrien didn't notice Tikki's absence until after he'd gone out for ice cream with his friends. When he did, he woke Plagg—who was resting after gorging himself on Roquefort—and the kwami claimed he hadn't noticed when she'd gone but that it must have been her decision because he was still here. Adrien had rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Ladybug could have been almost anyone in the crowd where he'd met up with Nino and Alya, and the little shop where they'd stopped for ice cream had been busy, too.

"Look at it this way," Plagg said in between yawns once they were safely back in Adrien's room. He was resting on the package of cheese he'd emptied earlier, and Adrien had collapsed into the computer chair. The Lucky Charm and the jar with the akuma remained untouched, half hidden behind his history textbook. "At least you know Ladybug will have gotten your message."

That was true, and Plagg's other point—that if Tikki hadn't left on her own, it was likely that he would have been kidnapped at the same time—gave Adrien some comfort that Tikki really _had_ been returned to Ladybug.

"What do you think she'll say when I see her?"

Plagg blinked open bleary eyes. "That you're a fool?" he guessed. "For not just finding out her identity at the start to save both of you this trouble?"

Adrien scowled. "You know it's better that she chooses to tell me herself."

"If she does choose that. You should have asked Tikki when you had the chance." Another yawn escaped Plagg before he added, "Ladybug might just come to you before tonight, anyway, if Tikki tells her who _you_ are. She might, if she still thinks she needs to."

Adrien blinked; that thought hadn't even occurred to him. "Do you think Ladybug will ask?"

"She's as big a fool as you if she doesn't."

"Aren't you supposed to be more supportive of me?"

Plagg stared at him, going so far as to fly up so he floated a foot in front of Adrien's nose. "This is the _second_ time you've had the perfect opportunity to find out the identity of the girl of your dreams, and this is the _second_ time you've let that opportunity slip through your fingers." He flicked his tail and spread his front paws. "I don't understand you. If I had an entire wheel of camembert in front of me, do you think I'd just close my eyes and ignore it?"

"This isn't the same!"

"You're ignoring a golden opportunity to get something you want. _That's_ the same."

"Yeah, but the cheese won't be around to let you regret a decision if you eat it right away," Adrien countered. "Forcing Ladybug into a situation she doesn't want isn't going to win me any favours with her, Plagg. What if I did that and she never wanted to see me again?"

"Ladybug would never make that choice," Plagg said practically. "She can't, not unless she plans to shirk her responsibilities; the two of you are most effective when you're working together. Besides, she was chosen, just like you were, and Tikki hasn't made a poor choice in centuries."

Adrien blinked. " _Centuries_? Then that Egyptian—?" He couldn't make himself finish. "Are you telling me you're five thousand years old? You and Tikki?"

"You think I've only been around five thousand years?"

Adrien opened his mouth and then closed it, not sure if the kwami was joking.

"Besides," Plagg added, "you're still going to find out who she is when you meet her tonight, aren't you? All you've been doing is making the waiting more painful for yourself and making this harder on both of you."

Adrien shook his head. "No, I want this to be her choice. That's the point."

"So it's her choice to come, and that makes it better? Are you even thinking this through?"

Adrien chuckled. "Plagg, I'm not going to betray her trust. If this proves to her that I mean what I say when I promise not to tell anyone, then all the better."

Plagg had dropped a few inches, so slowly that Adrien wasn't sure the kwami had even noticed. When he spoke, his confusion was evident in his voice. "How exactly do you plan to meet her and not actually see who she is?"

Adrien grinned. "That's where you come in."


	4. Chapter 4

Alya had called Marinette just before supper, saying Adrien really _was_ busy tonight: he had a meeting—probably, Nino had told her afterwards, to do with the rescheduled photoshoot. Marinette hadn't even known Adrien had _had_ a photoshoot coming up, but she supposed she couldn't expect to overhear everything pertinent to Adrien's schedule. Perhaps this had been a last minute thing, and that's why they were scrambling to set the schedule?

It didn't matter now, anyway. Her earlier words to him had come true; with the meeting Chat Noir had arranged, she really was busy tonight.

The message gave no specific time for _when_ tonight, but presumably he meant after dark, maybe around the time she typically headed out for patrol. (After the first rude awakening, she'd decided it was worth sacrificing sleep on the off chance that there was an akuma-infected individual terrorizing the city.) She knew she wouldn't have caught the place of the meeting the first time through the message were it not for Tikki, but the statue was the only spot he'd ever mentioned. She would have found it once she knew what she was looking for.

Of course, all Marinette had given Alya when she'd asked was a laugh and an apology and the false admission that she couldn't make head or tails of what Chat Noir might mean if there _was_ another message underlying his first.

She'd downplayed her injury over the dinner table, distracting her parents with questions about the new recipe her father was working on for the bakery, and had escaped to her room as soon as she was able. She watched Chat Noir's video on Alya's blog over and over—this was at least her fifteenth time through it—and stared at his smirking figure on the screen, wondering who he really was behind the mask.

Tikki still refused to say whether Marinette actually knew him otherwise, but that was answer itself in Marinette's book; Tikki would have had no reason to refuse to answer if she didn't know him.

Marinette had always figured that she was less curious about his identity than Alya—who had suspected Chat Noir of being _Adrien_ , of all people!—but she was quickly realizing she'd been fooling herself before.

She did want to know who he was, and not just because it would make contacting him easier in the future if one of them couldn't transform.

She was no longer confident that she knew Chat Noir well, and that bothered her. She knew she could trust him—with her life, with her secret—but she'd gotten comfortable with the easy relationship they had between them, and she'd let herself forget that he was wearing a mask, too. She'd let herself forget that there was far more to him than the mask he showed her and the rest of Paris.

She wasn't proud of that.

She really should know better.

And to have Tikki practically admit that she _knew_ him….

Marinette huffed and played the video again, trying to discern his identity from his mannerisms, but she didn't associate them with anyone _but_ Chat Noir. Either she didn't know the boy without the mask well or it was all part of the mask he wore. She wished it weren't the latter—she wished the truth was that she only knew him in passing—because if it was part of his mask, then it was her own fault for failing to see through it. Part of it was that she had never thought to look, part that she'd never wanted to, and part that she'd been afraid to look deeper.

She'd felt safer with that distance between them, with the assurance that their masks would remain on, but now she suspected that false sense of security—thanks to the part of her that was trying to protect herself from judgement—had been largely responsible for what had nearly been Ladybug's downfall.

She had the uncomfortable feeling that Chat Noir had tried to find out more about Ladybug than she ever had about him, but Tikki refused to confirm any of her suspicions now.

Marinette paused the video before getting up and walking over to her window. She could see the statue dedicated to Chat Noir and Ladybug in the park below quite easily, but she saw no one haunting it, no one waiting for her—masked or unmasked.

She went back to the computer, itching for night to fall. She knew how Alya felt now, believing that she was _so close_ to figuring out Ladybug's identity but never managing it. Frankly, Marinette was lucky Alya hadn't started drawing a Ladybug costume on _her_ ….

Marinette's eyes went wide.

A Ladybug costume.

On her.

Why hadn't she thought of that _before_?

"You might have been a target," Tikki offered. "You didn't know."

Marinette hadn't even realized she'd spoken aloud until then. "But maybe I should…." She trailed off and glanced at the time. It was unlikely she could get to a store before it closed, assuming she even had enough money to buy a costume, and she didn't have time to make one.

Her head thudded down onto her desk. This was _hopeless_. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to keep her secret or give hers up and know Chat Noir's in return— _surely_ he'd tell her in return. There were so many benefits, but so many risks….

Maybe she should just send Tikki to meet him.

"Would I be making a mistake if I met him, Tikki?" Marinette mumbled without looking up. "Would I be making a mistake if I told him?"

Tikki didn't answer, and after a few seconds of listening only to the hum of her computer, the rush of traffic outside, and sirens in the distance, Marinette raised her head. The kwami was perched on top of Marinette's computer monitor, having moved from the sewing machine.

"Tikki?" Marinette prompted. "What did the other Ladybugs do? With the other Chat Noirs?"

"Sometimes they knew," Tikki said softly. "Sometimes, they didn't. It's easier to keep a secret when you're the only one holding it."

Marinette frowned and straightened up. "Did something happen?"

"Something always happened," Tikki answered. "It wasn't always good and it wasn't always bad. Plagg might maintain that some of the worst things could have been prevented if the secrets had been known earlier, but we lost…." She trailed off. "Knowing can be dangerous too, Marinette. Knowledge is always dangerous when it's knowledge someone else wants."

"And loose lips sink ships." Marinette might not be sure who Plagg was—presumably Chat Noir's kwami, since Tikki had mentioned the name earlier—but she was still certain Chat Noir wouldn't tell. He wouldn't knowingly tell, at any rate, any more than she would, but Tikki was warning her that the cost of a mistake could potentially be larger than she'd imagined. "What did you lose, the last time something went wrong?"

"Plagg and I aren't the only kwami," Tikki said instead of giving a proper answer. "Remember who you're facing, who you're _really_ facing, and think carefully. This Chat Noir…. It would be good if you knew him better. It would benefit both of you to know how the other thinks and what might get inside your heads. But your identities…." Tikki shook her head. "Maybe Plagg is right, and this time knowing the truth would save the two of you from being driven to distraction with wonder. I'm not sure. I was ready to tell Chat Noir the truth when I saw no other way to get back to you, Marinette, unless I risked getting caught in the process, but you have a choice now. It's yours to make, and Chat Noir's, just as it always was, but you need to accept the consequences of your decision."

Marinette stared at Tikki, not liking how the kwami was confirming some of her fears. "But…what if I make the wrong choice?"

"We'll make the best of it. We all will. There's nothing else we can do."

Marinette glanced out the window again. It was finally beginning to get dark, and now she felt as if she were running out of time. How was she supposed to decide? Part of her truly wanted to know Chat Noir's secret and was willing to part with her own, but the other part shied away from the potential cost. What was she supposed to do?

* * *

Dusk was falling by the time Adrien reached the little park with the statue, not far from the bakery Marinette's parents owned. He'd come as himself, taking the metro and the streets instead of the rooftops (or enlisting his father's limo and potentially having to come up with explanations). He'd secured the trapped akuma and the Lucky Charm in a spare satchel, along with plenty of cheese for Plagg, and had carefully wrapped Ladybug's earrings—her Miraculous—and placed them in with everything else.

He also had a couple other essentials that would be or might become necessary for his crazy plan to work.

Adrien moved to stand so his back was touching the brick divider that served as the fence near the entrance to the park on this side, and then he took careful, measured steps toward the statue.

"What are you doing?" Plagg asked as he bobbed along beside Adrien, clearing thinking it was dark enough by now that he wouldn't be easily spotted.

Adrien continued counting under his breath until he reached the statue. "Pacing it off," he said. "I want to be sure that I know exactly where it is." The statue's base came up to his chin. A quick look around confirmed that no one was walking by, so he closed his eyes and heaved himself up. He'd sat here before, as Chat Noir. _This should work_.

"So what are you doing?" Plagg repeated as Adrien pushed himself off and walked back the way he'd come.

"Making sure I can get back there," Adrien replied as he reached the brick divider again. He slid down until he was hidden from sight, at least from anyone on the street. "I mean to keep my promise, Plagg."

Plagg dropped down to rest on Adrien's knee. His eyes widened when Adrien pulled out the strip of cloth he'd cut from one of his shirts. (His father would not be happy if he ever noticed, but this was important, even if Adrien wouldn't be able to explain why.) "You can't want to…." Plagg stopped. "You do," he realized glumly.

"Do you have a better idea?" Adrien asked.

" _You_ could wear that."

"And let everyone know my weakness at a glance?"

"You're not going to be able to do anything," Plagg warned, but he allowed Adrien to tie the makeshift blindfold over his eyes.

"I won't be able to see anything," Adrien corrected. "Besides, if I just wore a blindfold myself, it might slip."

The transformation this time left him dizzy. While he usually had Plagg's excellent night vision, he now couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. It was more disorienting than he'd anticipated, especially when he _knew_ his eyes were open and that he _should_ be able to see something.

He slung the bag back over his shoulder and got to his feet, thinking he should have paced off how far he'd need to _crawl_ to the statue and wondering if he should just stay where he was. He picked his way gingerly toward the statue anyway—he wanted to be visible to Ladybug—and, after a bit of pawing at the air, found the corner. He eased himself up onto the pedestal and waited.

If he was extremely unlucky, Hawk Moth would have found someone vulnerable enough to be possessed by an akuma, and he'd have to take off his ring (it was the fastest way to release the transformation, if the most jarring), get the blindfold off Plagg, stuff him full of cheese (that wouldn't be the hard part), and transform again—all without anyone seeing anything. _That_ would be the difficult part, after trapping the villain and releasing the akuma. Unfortunately, that was all too real a possibility and the reason he didn't want to have a visible weakness of which someone could take advantage. Blademaster's connection to Hawk Moth had not been severed until _after_ he'd gotten Ladybug's Miraculous, and Adrien doubted that Hawk Moth was not aware of the fact that she'd lost her Miraculous.

Of course, that also meant Hawk Moth had no idea whether her Miraculous had _stayed_ lost—or so Adrien hoped—and he expected the lack of a villain turning up meant Hawk Moth had not found a suitable candidate sufficiently close to the last attack. Unless the villain (or Hawk Moth, though that was less likely) was merely biding his time, but most were focused enough on whatever goal they had that they had a tendency to make their presence known. Quickly.

Adrien settled in to wait, not daring even to whistle to pass the time because he needed to listen or someone would be able to sneak up on him without his realizing it. He kept still, frozen like the statue behind him (he was fortunately used to holding poses), and waited.

And waited.

What if Ladybug _hadn't_ gotten his message? Plagg would be able to hold the transformation for a long time, Adrien knew—he wasn't using his power; he wasn't doing anything, really—but he hadn't entertained the possibility that Ladybug might not show up, especially after he'd realized Tikki had returned to her. Tikki knew what he'd planned. Surely she could have talked Ladybug into this.

"Come on, my lady," Adrien murmured. "You must have gotten my message."

"She did," a voice beside him said softly, and Adrien jumped in spite of himself, nearly toppling off the pedestal in the process. He'd half expected a villain to have caught him unawares, but his mind finally placed the voice as Tikki's. "She just wanted to be sure it was safe."

Adrien heard the soft footfalls approaching him then, a gait he recognized but wouldn't necessarily have been able to place as Ladybug's—although he was quite familiar with her running gait. She stopped in front of him. "Hello, Chat Noir," she said quietly. "I'm Ladybug."

* * *

When Marinette looked out the window and saw a dark shadow that must be Chat Noir by the statue, her stomach still twisted, but she went to him. She strongly debated grabbing a scarf to tie around her face—anything to keep her identity a secret—but in the end, she didn't. She did still send Tikki ahead of her, though. Not to scout ahead, as she'd told the kwami, but with the hope that Tikki would refuse if she thought Marinette was making a mistake.

Marinette had the feeling Tikki knew quite well what Marinette had tried to do, because the kwami had given her a long look before zipping off.

Chat Noir jumped when he noticed Tikki, and it made Marinette smile, but her nerves were too great to allow her to keep smiling when she went forward to introduce herself to Chat Noir.

"I'm glad you could join me, my lady," he said. There was no indication on his face that he recognized her. Actually, he wasn't even looking at her; he was looking at a spot above her head and to the left. It was disconcerting.

"Are you okay?" she asked slowly.

"I'm blinded by your beauty," Chat Noir joked as he grinned down at her.

His gaze had wandered slightly downward, to the point where she imagined he was staring at her forehead. "You really can't see me," she realized.

"Your secret is safe unless you wish to divulge it," he said. He sounded hopeful, but she had no time to think on that because he thrust out a bag and hit her on the nose in the process. "Sorry," he said quickly at her squawk. "I didn't think all of this through."

"That's all right," Marinette murmured, taking the satchel and looking inside. The akuma was trapped in a jar. The fork—the Lucky Charm—was wedged into a pocket, and carefully wrapped in tissue paper was her Miraculous.

Marinette put the earrings back on immediately, dropping to a crouch at the base of the statue and avoiding Chat Noir's swinging feet. She hissed in pain as she eased the earring into her right ear, but this would be over quickly. "Tikki," she called softly, "transform me."

It felt good to be Ladybug again.

"Did it work?" Chat Noir wondered.

Marinette smiled. "Perfectly well." She picked up the Lucky Charm and handed it to Chat Noir, who grasped blindly at it when she told him to hold it. "And now I've got an akuma to cleanse." She unbound her yo-yo and then released the akuma from the jar. She caught it again with ease, cleansing its evil and waving the little butterfly away when she released it again. "Time to reverse the damage," she said, more for Chat Noir's sake than her own as she plucked the fork from Chat Noir's hands. She threw it into the air with a cry and the bound magic was released with a flourish. She breathed a sigh of relief as part of it swept over her, healing her injury. She hadn't been sure it would.

"It's done?"

"It's done," Marinette confirmed. Thankfully, for Blademaster's sake, she knew Alya was keeping a sharp eye on the situation and would let someone know it was safe to free him if the door wasn't unlocked on its own. She'd half expected him to escape before this, really. She was lucky— _they_ were lucky—he hadn't.

Marinette managed not to laugh too much as Chat Noir pushed himself off the base of the statue and stumbled on his landing. He was this way because of her, after all. "Thank you for keeping Tikki safe. For keeping _me_ safe."

"My lady…." Chat Noir reached out and found her arm and drew her toward him. She let him; she suspected what was coming and didn't want to raise her voice above a whisper, though she wasn't sure if she'd be able to anyway. "I will not tell, my lady. You know I won't." His wide, unseeing eyes stared just past her face. "Please. You may even know who I am first."

Chat Noir held out his hand with his Miraculous. She'd only have to pull off his ring, and he would lose his transformation. He would become again the boy behind the mask, the boy Tikki thought she should get to know better regardless of whether or not she knew his true identity.

Marinette sighed. She reached with her free hand to curl Chat Noir's hand into a fist and pressed it back to him. "I can't."

"But—"

Marinette put a finger to Chat Noir's lips, and he stopped protesting immediately. "Tikki says it might be dangerous for us to know. I don't want to risk you—or anyone else I care about." She dropped her finger, but she stayed close to him, standing directly in front of him so that even if he couldn't see her, he was looking right at her.

"But…. I thought…."

"I'm sorry," Marinette said. "I'm tempted to know the truth, too. Believe me, I _am_ , so much so it's almost painful, but if Hawk Moth…."

"We can deal with Hawk Moth."

"But what if we _can't_? He'll do anything to get our Miraculous. He'll go after our families, our friends. Tikki won't tell me any details, but she doesn't need to for me to know it could be terrible."

"A cat-astrophe?"

"This isn't the time for puns. You must know that."

Chat Noir was quiet for a moment. Then, "Plagg doesn't seem to have the same concerns. He…. He was never exactly discouraging of my, uh, curiosity."

 _Curiosity killed the cat._ She wanted to say it, but she didn't want to make it real. She'd nearly seen the end of Chat Noir once, with Timebreaker, and she didn't want to see it again. "I don't get the impression he and Tikki see eye to eye on all of this. She made it sound like he thinks some of the bad stuff that's happened in the past could have been prevented."

"Without secrets, you mean?"

Marinette shrugged helplessly before remembering he couldn't see her. "Yes. No. I don't know. Fewer secrets, maybe. Even Tikki thinks we should get to know each other better—"

"I never thought I'd hear you say that, my lady." His grin returned. "Is this your way of asking for my number?"

"Chat Noir, please, this is important."

The grin faded. "We still need to be able to contact each other," he pointed out.

"We can do that through the Ladyblog. You must check it as often as I do if that's how you planned to get a message to me. We can use the comment section and set code words to mean different things—"

"That's not practical for something urgent."

"We'll figure something else out, then, for that, but we can't—"

This time, it was Chat Noir who held a finger to her lips—and he must have had a very good idea of exactly where she was standing by now because he didn't accidentally poke her in the eye in the process. "I want you to know," he said. "You don't…. Ladybug, as much as not knowing the truth about you pains me, you don't have to tell me who you are, not if you don't want to. The last thing I want to do is endanger you or your family. But I want you to know who I am. I don't want to keep this secret from you."

He moved to take off his ring, and she caught his hands. "No," she said quickly, her desperate tone enough to stop the smile that had begun to grow on his face. "I can't let you do that. What about _your_ family?"

All traces of the smile vanished. "It would be…difficult to target my family," he answered slowly, "even for Hawk Moth. My father travels a lot."

Marinette waited, but Chat Noir didn't continue. "And your mother?" she prompted.

"My father travels a lot," he repeated, ignoring her question. "Hawk Moth would find an easier target in my friends, but I can protect them."

Marinette shook her head before remembering herself and saying, "You can't always expect to be there when they need you."

"I can keep a close eye on them," Chat Noir countered, "and that's only a worry if Hawk Moth finds out, isn't it? You wouldn't tell, my lady. I know you wouldn't."

"No! I don't want to know."

"You said you did," he reminded her, and she couldn't deny his words. "If you truly do not wish to know, then go, my lady. I'll not be able to track you when I cannot see."

She wanted to flee, to lie awake later because she'd had a chance to discover the truth and had given it up and was regretting the decision, but her feet were rooted to the ground. She realized she still held Chat Noir's hands and dropped them as if burned. "It needs to be a secret. From everyone, including me." She was beginning to doubt her own words.

Chat Noir's hands reached for her face and traced her features; she took a deep breath and let him, closing her eyes against her tears. She _wanted_ to know; she did. But she couldn't. And she had to accept that. He was just making this so hard for her!

He leaned forward and spoke into her ear. "I'd rather it was a secret from everyone _but_ you, my lady. My name is—"

The world exploded into flame.

* * *

A/N: Consequences. *grins* Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing!


	5. Chapter 5

Marinette staggered at the thunderous blast, falling into Chat Noir and toppling them both. She looked over her shoulder and felt sick. An orange glow drowned out the street lamps, and she could hear the fierce hissing and spitting and cracking of the flames. Smoke already billowed up into the night, the acrid smell alone enough to let Chat Noir know what the situation was if the heat itself didn't do it.

It was the bakery.

The bakery was on fire.

And her parents were still at home, upstairs if they hadn't been in the kitchen….

"I have to go," she said, scrambling to her feet and taking off at a run.

She could see flames on the first floor, licking at the walls around the shattered window glass, so she went in through her room on the upper floor, wincing as the heat hit her anew and the smoke stung her eyes. Being Ladybug did not make her immune to flames or smoke inhalation, so she grabbed a scarf and tied it around her nose and mouth—it was better than nothing—before running into the hallway and shouting her parents' names.

Marinette found her mother first—from the looks of things, she had been folding laundry in the bedroom—and got her out to the street in short order, not liking how the floor had creaked under their weight. Marinette waited just long enough to assure herself that Sabine would be fine, that she hadn't been burned and that the coughing would subside now that she was in the fresh air. A quick glance over to the park revealed that Chat Noir was gone; presumably, he intended to help out once he could see properly again. Marinette pushed it from her mind and headed back into the flames, leaving behind the cool night air and running headlong into the furnace; her mother may be all right, but she'd said her family was still inside.

It was hard to keep her stinging eyes open, between the heat and the smoke, but Marinette pushed on, leaping over some obstacles and ducking under others as she searched. The explosion had not been kind to her home, turning the family business into an obstacle course of burning debris, broken glass, blackened walls, and collapsed displays. She was only aware of the immediate dangers, too intent on her goal to do more than extinguish the flames when she finally noticed her hair had caught.

Marinette found her father in the bakery's industrial kitchen, slumped unconscious by the far counter. The bleeding gash in his head looked like a mere scrape next to his scorched flesh. Flames licked at the remainder of his clothes and Marinette beat them out before they could do any more damage. The sight made her stomach turn, and she tried to swallow down her nausea with her fear. She was only partly successful; the fear remained stubbornly stuck in her throat. "Monsieur Dupain," she whispered. She tried saying his name again, louder, and her voice cracked.

He didn't stir.

Marinette didn't know what else to do, so she used her Lucky Charm. She was hoping for anything from a fire extinguisher to a stretcher, preferably on wheels.

She got a compact.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Marinette scowled and put it down, thinking that it was just as well Chat Noir wasn't here to make a crack about makeup. The powder inside the compact would surely be flammable if it were allowed to float like dust through the air, and she didn't want to make things worse. One explosion was enough. For it to have been this severe, there must have been flour in the air. Marinette knew her father. Tom was not forgetful or lax when it came to safety. For the ventilation system to have gone down and allowed the flour to ignite, for the sprinkler system to stop working…. It didn't make sense.

Marinette wiped at her forehead, trying to keep the sweat from dripping into her eyes. It was a very good thing the mask was magically adhered to her face or she'd have lost it already. A glance at the back door confirmed that, barring the flames, the path was clear. Good. She doubted she had much time, and it would be a struggle to get Tom out of here regardless. As for the Lucky Charm…. She could figure out what to do with the compact once she got her father safely away from the fire.

Marinette moved to sling Tom's arm over her shoulder so she could half carry, half drag him out, but before she could touch him, the flames around them roared with renewed vigour. The heat, the smoke, even the smell…. It was dizzying.

This was no ordinary fire.

If Marinette had had any lingering doubt, it vanished as the flames nearest her coalesced into the shape of a man, featureless but for the flickering flames. Her mouth felt drier than normal, but she made it work anyway as she straightened up to face the figure. "Who are you?"

"I am Flamethrower." His voice was steady, stronger than the crackling and spitting of the fire around them, but she didn't recognize it. "I devour those who have tried to devour me."

"What did this man ever do to you?" Marinette cried, gesturing at her father. She'd always thought of him as a fair man, a good man—not someone who would ignite the desire for revenge.

"He has done nothing, but you, Ladybug…."

Marinette blanched. "You're harming an innocent man because of _me_?"

"Because of who he is to you, Ladybug."

Marinette's world spun. He couldn't know. He _mustn't_ know.

"Give me your Miraculous," Flamethrower said as her earrings sounded in warning for the first time, "and neither I nor my master will bother you again."

"H-how?" She didn't think she could deny it, but…. She saw a creeping shadow by the back door and realized Chat Noir was easing his way inside. She swallowed and did her best to keep Flamethrower's attention on her. "How did you ever come to _that_ conclusion? That this family is more important to me than any other?"

"Because it is yours, Ladybug," Flamethrower hissed. "You are the baker's daughter, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

Chat Noir froze.

"I know Marinette," Marinette said with far more confidence than she felt. She had no idea how long Flamethrower had been there, hidden in the fire. For all she knew, he could transport himself between the flames like Alya had been able to move through cell phones as Lady WiFi. He certainly appeared to be made of flames. "She is at her friend Alya's tonight. But I am not her."

Flamethrower stepped closer to her; the heat was nearly unbearable, and sweat poured more steadily down her face. "My master saw you," he taunted. "He saw the little girl you are beneath the mask." His head tilted, and she could make out vague features of the man behind the flames now. "And I found you for him."

Sirens. She finally heard sirens, these ones seeming to get closer instead of farther away. Marinette remembered the ones she'd heard earlier and wondered what had happened to the others Flamethrower had decided to investigate. Her mother had mentioned something about arson over dinner tonight, but Marinette hadn't been paying much attention, too worried about her meeting with Chat Noir.

"You may have found Ladybug, but you _didn't_ find the girl beneath the mask." Marinette crossed her arms. The scarf over her mouth slipped off, but she didn't tighten or retie it. She didn't want to risk looking fidgety—especially since she only had so much time before she _did_ become Marinette again. Her earrings beeped, driving that point home. "And a lucky thing for Marinette that she wasn't here when you mistook me for her, making threats she wouldn't even understand."

Chat Noir had begun moving again, and she realized he was carrying a fire extinguisher. She had no idea where he had gotten it from—one of the neighbours, perhaps? It wasn't theirs, which was wedged behind some debris that had fallen against the far wall—but she was grateful anyway. She wasn't convinced that it would help, exactly; the fire was clearly far too large for one little extinguisher. Still, it was better than nothing. It had to be better than a compact.

Marinette dropped slowly down to a crouch to pick up the Lucky Charm regardless; it was bound to be useful sooner or later. Somehow. She always got something she needed, something that would be useful with a bit of luck, and she had no doubt the magic had provided her with something that would help defeat Hawk Moth's latest victim. Still, Flamethrower's eyes followed her movements, and she half expected him to live up to his name and send a fireball toward her. She wouldn't put it past him to be able to do that, but she had to keep taunting him. She needed to keep his attention on her and she needed to convince him that she wasn't Marinette.

She needed to convince Chat Noir, too. Didn't she?

"Really, Hawk Moth saw no more of me earlier than he does now if he believes I'm that girl," Marinette added flippantly as she straightened up. "How clearly do you think he can see, looking through someone else's eyes?"

"You _are_ her," Flamethrower roared, the blaze around them responding to his anger and growing in intensity. "I see what others do not when they walk blindly past me every day, and you are the baker's daughter!"

Practice was all that kept Marinette from trembling, all that kept her voice steady and challenging. "You truly believe that? So Marinette is the first girl you presented to Hawk Moth as a candidate for Ladybug? You never had to consider anyone else?"

Flamethrower howled and leapt forward. Marinette braced herself—she couldn't leap out of the way and leave her father exposed—and suddenly Chat Noir was there beside her, foam erupting from the extinguisher. "Hate to rain on your parade," Chat Noir said over the rushing sound of the extinguisher, "but Ladybug is right. I've seen her and Marinette together, and that Ladybug wasn't just a copycat."

Marinette knew that was a lie, of course, but in that moment she could have kissed him.

Flamethrower's fire had been thoroughly doused. A foam-covered teenage boy stood in his place, his black suit slashed with gold in a way that was reminiscent of the flames themselves. The light lasted for a split second before fire around them went out as quickly as if Chat Noir had drenched the entire building with water. Marinette blinked in the sudden darkness, wishing her eyes would adjust faster. "Hawk Moth will need to keep looking if he's to find the real me," Marinette said, looking the boy up and down to see where the akuma might be hiding. The meagre light coming in from outside did little to illuminate anything, as far as she was concerned, and she envied Chat Noir his night vision.

Flamethrower growled and tried to shake off the foam. Once he moved, she spotted a small cigarette lighter clenched in his hand. He clicked it, and as the flame sprang to life, steam rose from his body. Marinette's eyes darted around the room as she tried to figure out how to make her Lucky Charm useful. A shadow moved to her left as Chat Noir dropped the spent fire extinguisher and extended his staff, but none of that…. Marinette's eyes went back to the flame of the lighter. Flamethrower had danced back, misinterpreting the range of Chat Noir's staff, but even after the explosion they had limited room to move. She intended to guard her father, but her yo-yo would be more useful for blocking the exits off for Flamethrower than tying him up when she had so little room to manoeuvre.

Marinette clicked open the compact and smiled. This time, it would be easier to let Chat Noir snatch the lighter—the akuma _had_ to be in it—while she distracted their opponent. Flamethrower was guarding the lighter and getting drier by the moment. She shifted the compact in her grip and glanced at her partner. He nodded and turned his attention back to Flamethrower, using his staff to vault over the counter and away from Marinette. Flamethrower's eyes flicked to him, and Marinette started trying to catch the reflection of the light in the compact's mirror.

That was something easier said than done, considering that Flamethrower kept dodging Chat Noir's attacks, but Flamethrower was the one at a disadvantage now. Chat Noir could see perfectly well, and Marinette's target was easily illuminated. He didn't notice her trick until the light was reflected into his eyes. He jerked back, and Chat Noir brought his staff down on the arm holding the lighter just as the flames sprang up again. The lighter dropped from his grip, the fire snuffed out again as the lighter hit the floor and skittered across to Marinette.

She brought her heel down on the lighter with a crack, releasing the akuma. She caught and cleansed it easily and watched as the little butterfly fluttered out of one of the broken windows. Not for the first time, she was grateful she had the power to erase the damage done here today. The bakery should not look like this, and her father….

Marinette's Miraculous gave another warning beep; she didn't have much time left before her transformation wore off. For the second time that night, she threw her Lucky Charm into the air and watched the magic disperse before it hit the ceiling, restoring everything—and everyone—to its proper order. The memory of the smoke still stung her nostrils, but her lungs felt clear and the bakery looked like it should. Her suit was no longer streaked with soot. Hawk Moth's magic was driven away from Flamethrower, and her father….

Tom was breathing. His eyes were open, and he was watching them, shifting himself into a sitting position as he took in his surroundings. As he remembered—as he realized—what had happened.

Her attention was drawn back to the former akuma victim at his stuttering words. "W-what…? Where am I?" The boy who had been Flamethrower was looking around in utter confusion. She still did not recognize him, but he looked a little older than she was, with sandy blond hair and hollow cheeks and rather grimy clothes. She was tempted to stuff a box of croissants into his hands before sending him off. She thought she would do that, once she found him again. He had to have known to look for her here somehow.

"The best bakery in town," Chat Noir answered with a wink at Marinette. His staff had returned to its small baton size and was secured again on his hip. Rather than partake in the usual acknowledgement of a completed mission, he took the boy by the shoulders and led him out, chattering away. He was giving her time—or maybe skipping their usual ritual was his way of saying that things weren't over, that they still needed to talk. She couldn't agree more.

Marinette's father climbed to his feet with a groan. Seeing him alive and well, standing before her, made her relax. He took her hand and shook it, a familiar, friendly smile on his face. "Thank you, Ladybug," Tom said. "I'm not sure what exactly happened, but thank you. If you and Chat Noir ever want to stop by for something sweet, you're more than welcome."

"You're welcome," she said, "and thank you for the invitation, but I have to go now." She made a dash for the door but didn't have time to make it very far before her transformation wore off completely. She tucked the exhausted Tikki into her jacket pocket before circling around the block so she could come around the front of the shop. She ignored the beeping from the phone in her purse that was undoubtedly heralding messages and missed calls from Alya. Marinette could speak with her friend later. She needed to find her parents first, letting them know she was all right and assuring herself that they were, too. And then, as soon as she had swiped a few cookies for Tikki, she intended to meet Chat Noir, assuming she could find him.

They had a conversation to finish.

* * *

Adrien had been tempted to look for Ladybug after the fight—she was the one running out of power, not him—but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd let her go for the same reason he'd led Hawk Moth's victim away with nothing more than a wink, for the same reason he hadn't asked Tikki about Ladybug's identity earlier. It was her secret, and he had no right to intrude on it.

Adrien had made a big show of leaving after introducing Christophe—the boy who had become Flamethrower—to Marinette's mother. She had praised both Chat Noir's and Ladybug's work and sympathized with the young man who no longer had any memory of terrorizing her family. She didn't know, after all, that Flamethrower had targeted them, had targeted Marinette—but then again, neither did he. Not anymore.

Seeing Sabine Cheng fuss over Christophe had been…hard, in a way. It shouldn't be. Adrien knew that. But he craved that sort of attention, the sort he never received anymore, and it had been hard to wear his usual mask of confidence when his heart was inwardly breaking. No one would be treated that way at his house, had something similar happened. Nino had practically been thrown out the last time he'd shown up, and that had been before he'd even become Bubbler.

Adrien had made his escape before Tom Dupain had walked out of the bakery to join his wife, but a part of him had wanted to stay. He'd wanted to be included in Sabine's mothering, in Tom's encouraging words. He wouldn't have minded pretending, just for a moment, that he was part of a loving family. Instead, he'd said his goodbyes and leapt up to the rooftops, vanishing into the shadows before circling around and creeping back into the park. Now he was sitting in a tree, watching from afar as Christophe went off with a box of baking gratefully received from Tom. He watched as Tom pulled out a cell phone and made a call—probably to his daughter. He watched, and he waited. He wasn't sure Ladybug would show up, but he…. He wanted to talk to her.

Now more than ever, after what had happened with Flamethrower.

He saw Marinette hurrying up the street, saw her mother envelop her in a hug, and watched as her father joined in. His heart twinged; he wished he had that sort of relationship with his father. After his mother…. Sometimes it felt like Gabriel Agreste viewed his son only as an asset these days, now that the easy days of childhood and laughter were nothing more than distant memories. His relationship with his father bordered on being strictly professional.

There were no hugs, no kisses, barely a touch on the shoulder now and then.

Adrien was not supposed to need that now that he was older. He should not need coddling, and he certainly needed no one else fawning over him. There should not be congratulations or even acknowledgement of a job well done when such was expected of him. He should be focusing on his studies and his modelling career; he should not suffer distractions like birthday parties or waste his time with sentiment.

It was a very good thing his father had no idea about his responsibilities as Chat Noir or the freedom being the hero gave Adrien; it was unlikely that he would approve, however much good Adrien did as Chat Noir, and Adrien hated the thought of disappointing his father more than he already did.

Ladybug made a very good point about the danger of their identities being known—the incident with Flamethrower drove that point home very well—but as much as Adrien wanted to protect his father, he was still willing to accept the risks. Despite what had happened tonight, he was confident that he _could_ protect his father and Nathalie and everyone else, and he didn't want to keep secrets from Ladybug. He wanted someone in his life besides Plagg—and now Tikki—to know the truth. He thought it might make things easier, sometimes, to speak with someone else who understood what it was like, living this double life. He couldn't share the truth with Nino; he wanted to share it with Ladybug.

Besides, Plagg talked more about his favourite varieties of cheese and how they were made than he did about anything else. Somehow, regardless of what Adrien asked him, they always ended up on the topic of cheese if it turned into a longer conversation. Adrien knew more about cheese now than he had ever thought possible prior to meeting the kwami. After meeting Ladybug's kwami, he was beginning to wonder if that was more deliberate on Plagg's part than he'd ever realized.

If Tikki didn't like to talk to Ladybug about what had happened in the past, it stood to reason that Plagg wouldn't, either, and would distract Adrien from the topic whenever it came up.

Adrien wasn't sure how long he waited. He'd phoned in to report the fire while Plagg was gorging himself before he'd ever searched for a fire extinguisher and entered the bakery, but it wasn't until after he'd left it that the emergency services had come and gone. He was thinking he really should just go out and patrol when Ladybug swung up onto the branch beside him. He hadn't even been paying enough attention to realize which direction she'd come from.

"You waited for me, kitty cat," she observed, a slight smile on her face.

"I'll always wait for you, my lady."

Her smile faded and she glanced in the direction of the bakery. "Chat Noir, what you said earlier…."

"About me wanting you to know the truth? This hasn't changed my mind, if that's what you're thinking. If you'll hear me out—"

"About me and Marinette," she interrupted. She refused to meet his eye, a very un-Ladybug-like thing to do.

He hesitantly reached out one hand to cup her chin and turn her face toward him. She didn't pull away. "You know as well as I do that Marinette isn't the first girl Flamethrower would have gone after if all he had to go on was a vague description of you, my lady, and I didn't want him harming anyone."

"So you didn't…didn't think…?"

He had thought. Not before tonight, admittedly, but he _had_ thought. He still wasn't sure, but he didn't want to be like Flamethrower, chasing down coincidences and similarities. That route was too painful, and he couldn't risk being wrong. He wanted to be sure. He wanted to know.

But he understood now more than ever Ladybug's caution.

"I don't know what to think," he admitted, dropping his hand so it rested lightly on hers. She twitched and pulled away, but not far—barely a hair's width. He tried not to read too much into that, whatever it might mean. "I will not ask you again to part with your secret. I know it is yours to share if you wish."

"Thank you." The words were barely a whisper. "For this, and for earlier, with Flamethrower and everything before that."

"I would do anything for you, my lady." The words made her stiffen for some reason, and he hurried on before he lost his nerve. "I understand your position, but I am not in the same one as you—"

"I don't want to know who you are. This…this was precisely why we _can't_ know, why no one can know. I'll think of something to solve the communication problem. We need something with safeguards, something to keep the distance between us—"

Distance was the last thing he wanted. "Ladybug—"

His Miraculous beeped.

"You need to go," she said.

"It's quiet here," he countered. "Just the two of us." He hadn't realized he was running so low on power, but evidently the quick transformations and long time spent as Chat Noir were taking their toll on Plagg despite the fact that he hadn't used Cataclysm. Plagg must not have been exaggerating when he'd said he hadn't had enough to eat, but Adrien could turn this to his advantage, if his lady was willing.

"It's out in the open," she pointed out.

"Then we'll just have to climb higher." He took her hand before she could protest and leapt up into the dense canopy of the tree. He stopped before her shock wore off—something he might have jokingly gloated over in other circumstances, considering this was Ladybug.

Ladybug looked horrified. "You aren't thinking this through," she insisted as another beep pierced the air. "Can you even give me one good reason—?"

"I want you to know," he interrupted earnestly. He couldn't voice the words _I love you_ , not right now, not when there was too great a danger that she'd laugh in his face or think he was making a poorly timed joke, but it meant the same to him. _I want you to know. I love you. Je t'aime._ But he couldn't just tell her that, especially not right now.

Ladybug pursed her lips, but there was an air of finality in her tone when she finally spoke, and the words drove a dagger into his heart. "That's not reason enough, and I thought you'd know that."

* * *

Chat Noir looked as if she'd struck him. Marinette wanted to gather him into her arms and apologize, but she couldn't be taken in by him acting wounded right now. This was too important a matter. Marinette took a deep breath to steel her resolve, something far easier said than done. "It's a very selfish reason," she said practically. "Plagg would not have chosen you to be Chat Noir just so you could be selfish."

Chat Noir blinked at her, clearly startled. "You've never met Plagg, have you?" He continued without giving her a chance to point out that, no, of course she hadn't. "He isn't at all like Tikki, not when it comes to his personality. I wouldn't exactly describe him as selfless."

"That still doesn't grant you leave to make a decision like this for all the wrong reasons." Another beep. A quick glance at his ring told her she needed to try to convince him of his folly before he convinced her of the reverse—or before she _did_ meet Plagg and the question of whether they ought to continue keeping their secrets from each other became moot.

"Believe me, my lady, I am making this decision for all of the right reasons, even if I cannot explain them to you right now. Trust that my intentions are true. I don't wish to hide from you any longer, and it is my secret to share. Please accept it."

He was not going to make this easy for her, was he?

"Chat Noir, we _can't_. What if it's not just our families? What if we can't protect the people we care about? What if Hawk Moth manages to get one of _us_ and we turn on the other? It's not worth the risk! Some secrets are meant to be kept."

"And some are sweeter for knowing. Ladybug, for me, it _is_ worth the risk." He looked at her with wide eyes, and she found herself trying to see the boy behind them. The final warning from his ring shattered the silence between them; he was running on borrowed time now. She closed her eyes and turned away, wrenching her hand from his.

"No."

"My lady—"

"No," she repeated, her voice threatening to shake if she said any more. He tried to turn her around as the beeping on his ring intensified. It finally cut off, and even though she was wearing her suit, she noticed the moment gloved hands became bare. She took a deep breath and kept her eyes shut, refusing to look.

"My lady, please."

His voice was softer now, pleading, but otherwise unchanged. It made her heart leap into her throat because it just seemed so _familiar_ , but she couldn't tell how much of that was due to her wild imagination. "I can't," she whispered. "We…we can't." She tore herself away and dove out of the tree, rolling as she hit the ground, and then her yo-yo was out and she was swinging away into the night before she could change her mind.

He'd been there. He'd been _right there_ , and she'd just….

Marinette didn't stop until she reached the Eiffel Tower, and then she settled herself in the framework halfway up to the lowest tier and finally admitted to herself that she was crying.

* * *

Adrien sat down on the branch and leaned against the trunk, stunned that Ladybug had fled. Plagg lay panting on a nearby twig, perfectly balanced but just heavy enough that the twig was beginning to bend under his weight. Any cheese Adrien had with him was still in the bag he'd left by the park entrance nearest the bakery, but Adrien made no move to retrieve it yet. "Did I make a mistake?"

Plagg muttered something Adrien couldn't make out.

Adrien sighed and scooped up the kwami and put him in his pocket before making his way down the tree with considerably less grace than Ladybug. Plagg wasn't much of a conversationalist when he was eating, so while he cleaned up the last of the cheese Adrien had brought, Adrien sat down and tried to answer his own question. What if he _had_ made a mistake?

He was willing to take the risk, but if Ladybug wasn't….

Adrien buried his face in his hands. "This is a mistake, isn't it, Plagg? I pushed too hard, and…." He trailed off, looking up again to see Plagg searching for crumbs of reblochon. He'd get no help in this for a while.

Maybe it was a matter of trust. Maybe, even after all this, Ladybug wasn't sure she could trust him. Wasn't sure she _should_ trust him, and for reasons other than just who he was. But maybe…maybe he could give her the choice again, since he knew her curiosity was there. He had prepared for the possibility, though at the time he'd been thinking he wouldn't be able to confess and face her reaction. If nothing else, this was a way to ensure she'd be able to find him more easily if this happened again. And he….

Well, it perhaps wouldn't be amiss to have a direct line to Ladybug in case of emergency, and vice versa. Adrien knew he made enough money modelling that his father, if he became aware of the expense, would not be able to outright forbid it, however much he might make his displeasure known. Adrien could pick up a pair of cell phones tomorrow, once the shops opened, and present Ladybug with the solution that night—or earlier, if they happened to run into each other. It was not a flawless solution, of course, but it was the only thing Adrien could think of right now.

Plagg had collapsed snoring onto the grass, so Adrien snatched him up and transformed. He slung the bag crosswise over his shoulder before leaping up and taking to the rooftops. He wasn't sure he'd made the decision to try to follow Ladybug's path until he found her at the Tower, and then he landed beside her. "I'm sorry, my lady. I never meant to distress you." He _was_ sorry for that, but he wasn't sure he could honestly apologize for his actions.

"He almost died because of me," whispered Ladybug, though she kept staring out at the City of Lights. "M-Marinette's father, and who knows who else? Hawk Moth won't stop trying to find me now, Chat Noir. I've endangered more people than I know about, and I can't in good conscience…."

She didn't finish, but she didn't need to. "Hawk Moth won't cease trying to unmask either of us," Adrien reminded her gently, "and all he knows now is that he doesn't have enough to go on to discover your true identity."

Ladybug's shoulders shook as she tried to hold in a sob. "But erasing the damage doesn't erase the feelings _or_ his knowledge!" She looked at him then. "What if he does find out and we can't protect people? Or what if we _do_ find out each other's secrets and that just endangers _more_ people? I know you want to know the truth, but I can't—"

This time when Adrien put a finger to her lips, he could see the surprised look on her face. He grinned a bit and let his finger linger there for perhaps longer than he should have, but at last he said, "I'll give you a present tomorrow. I've thought of something to try, and it might solve our communication problem."

Ladybug blinked. "Then you aren't angry with me?"

Adrien smiled softly. "I could never be angry with you, my lady. Certainly not when you have such noble reasons for acting the way you do." He was disappointed, yes, but he was not angry.

She was quiet for a moment, but in the end all she said was, "What's your solution?"

"Cell phones, each with only the other's number programmed into it. I'll take care of the details. You needn't worry about it."

Ladybug frowned. "But won't that—?"

"You needn't worry about it," repeated Adrien. "You only need to trust me."

"Of course I trust you," Ladybug said immediately, and Adrien relaxed. "You've never given me any reason not to trust you and plenty to continue doing so. It was never an issue of not trusting you."

"It's of not trusting others?" Adrien guessed.

"And of not trusting myself." Ladybug knit her fingers together. "Chat Noir, your secret, _my_ secret, we can't…." She shook her head. "It's just not _safe_. If it were safe, we'd have known from the start."

Adrien wasn't sure he agreed with that, but Ladybug already knew his opinion. Instead, he reached into the bag and pulled out the sealed envelope he'd placed in there before leaving his house and handed it to her. He hadn't thought he'd need it, but he'd made the decision that he wanted her to know, and if she didn't want to hear it now, well….

Ladybug looked at him in confusion but took the envelope regardless. "What's this?"

He gave her a cocky grin. "Just my picture, in case you ever need something to remember me by."

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "You aren't an easy one to forget." She began working her fingers down the seal before stilling. She looked up at him again, eyes suddenly wide. "Unless you mean—?"

Adrien's grin faltered. "It's in case something happens," he explained, "and you need to know, even if you don't want to know now. Think of it as a failsafe."

"But if someone else finds it—"

"—they won't think anything of it. Trust me in that. It's just a photograph. It has no connection to Chat Noir. If someone else finds and opens that envelope in your stead, you might not even notice."

Ladybug chuckled. "You think I wouldn't notice a picture of a strange boy suddenly turning up in my room if one of my friends—assuming someone else _did_ open it on me—found it and wondered who it was? I wouldn't even be able to answer them!"

Adrien's smile this time was small. "I think you'd be able to answer them," he said quietly. She might not be one of the girls who had one of his modelling pictures in her room, but he doubted she had missed every poster that was plastered around the city. "I wish it weren't true, but you would have a far better chance of finding me than I would you if I were in your position."

Ladybug's brow knit. "Chat Noir—"

"It matters not, my lady. I do not expect you to do the same in return unless you wish it, but know that this is safe, whatever your fears."

To his great relief, she didn't shred the envelope on principle. "Thank you," she said instead. "You've done more than I ever expected, even when I haven't known my own mind. I just…." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't want to make a mistake. What if I look at it and _do_ know who you are and can't pretend I don't know the truth next time I see you as yourself? I'm afraid I'm not the best actress in the world."

"You don't need to be. You are purrfect as you are, my lady."

"Are you ever _not_ a flirt, kitty cat?" Adrien opened his mouth, but Ladybug cut him off. "Thank you. Again. For all of this." She clutched the envelope tighter. "It…this…. You've jumped through hoops for me, Chat Noir, and I'll never be able to repay you for taking care of Tikki and returning her and the Miraculous to me. But your secret…." She hesitated. "I know you want me to know your secret. I'm just not sure I'm ready to hear it."

"All you need to do is open the envelope when you are," Adrien assured her. "Be it tonight or in ten years—" he _really_ hoped she didn't wait that long "—know that I will always be ready for you to know. And if you ever want to entrust me with your secret in return—"

"Oh, don't say it like that, please," Ladybug interrupted. "I meant it when I said it wasn't a matter of trust. I'm just worried about what could happen once the truth is known. It'll never be forgotten once it is."

"We will weather any storm—" Adrien had no doubt about that "—so I leave the decision to you." He took her hand and brought it to his lips before she had a chance to pull away. "Thank you for considering it." He grinned at her as she snatched her hand away. "I'd best be off. Until next time, my lady—unless you choose to find me first." He leapt away before she had a chance to read the truth in his face, to sense his disappointment. He had never lied to her, but he didn't want her to know how hard it was for him to leave without blurting out the truth.

But he was used to acting, even if she wasn't.

He'd had plenty of practice, whether he'd truly wanted it or not.

* * *

Marinette watched Chat Noir leave and then looked down at the envelope in her hands. She'd torn the corner before realizing he'd meant it was a photograph of the boy beneath the mask, and she could see a corner of the glossy photo peeking out of the envelope. She couldn't see him, not really; there was a bit of a white that was visible, maybe a jacket or a shirt, but the rest was greenery, shrubs that could be found in almost every park in the city.

It told her nothing, and her fingers itched to widen the tear.

Despite all her talk, she did want to know.

Marinette gripped the envelope, well aware that she was bending the picture out of shape. "I can't look," she told herself. "It's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of safety."

She still didn't entirely believe her own words.

Marinette's patrol was cursory at best, and she was soon back in her room, lying on her bed and staring at the envelope on her pillow.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Marinette?"

Tikki had been asking a variation on that question for the past ten minutes, and Marinette still had no good answer for her. "If I were sure, I'd either have opened it or hidden it by now."

"You won't be able to forget who he is once you know," Tikki warned her, even though Marinette had said much the same to Chat Noir earlier. "You can always do the same as him in case of an emergency. Hawk Moth's victims are focused on their goal; they don't think clearly enough to remember something like that."

Marinette's breath caught in her throat. "Is that what happened before?"

Tikki fell silent, and Marinette had to prompt her three more times before she got a response. "The past is not necessarily an indication of the future," the kwami hedged. "Plagg is right about that. But we've seen patterns and cycles, and not everything has ended…pleasantly."

Marinette took a slow breath. "I know the knowledge can be a risk, Tikki, but isn't it more often a boon?"

"It has helped before," Tikki agreed carefully, "and that is why I would have told Chat Noir the truth if it had come to it. There are benefits and risks to every decision, Marinette, but you are the one who must weigh them, not I."

"I need to decide if the cost—the potential cost—is worth it." Marinette bit her lip but stretched one hand forward to pick up the envelope. She hesitated, but Tikki—who was now hovering in the corner of her vision—made no move to stop her. She snatched the envelope before she lost her nerve, rolling over onto her back and hooking her finger in it at the same time. She tore it open but made no move to remove the photograph and look at it; she just kept staring at the envelope.

"Tikki?"

The kwami floated over to land on her chest. "Trust your judgement, Marinette. _I_ do. You wouldn't have been chosen if you were a fool."

"And neither would Chat Noir," Marinette murmured. "I trust him, Tikki. I do. I think I trust him more than I trust myself. What if _I'm_ the one who makes a mistake and exposes him?"

Tikki did not immediately deny this possibility, which did nothing for the butterflies in Marinette's stomach. "Trusting him is important, but you still need to have confidence in yourself. Do you truly believe knowing would be for the best?"

Marinette groaned and let her arms drop. Knowing would be easier, certainly, especially when it came to keeping in contact, and Chat Noir seemed to think they'd get through whatever Hawk Moth threw at them regardless, but she wasn't so sure. She'd seen Chat Noir nearly get erased from existence—all because he'd saved her!—and that had shaken her more than she'd ever admitted to him. If she was his undoing because of this, because of something that couldn't be reversed….

She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to forgive herself.

But Tikki had advised getting to know him better, and what better way to begin understanding her partner than finding out more about him and his life? She'd have known even without Tikki's testimony that he wasn't the sort of person she couldn't stand, like Chloé. He was a bit of a flirt and a tease and maybe that was an indication of something more that she'd been blind to before, but he'd kept her best interests at heart and had impressed Tikki, and she imagined he could be a good friend. Like Nino was, perhaps, even if he was more Adrien's friend than hers. Nino wasn't someone she shared (most) secrets with like Alya, but he was funny and caring, she knew that much. Chat Noir was much more full of himself and too reckless for his own good, but he had a good heart. She knew he'd keep her secret if she told him.

And he had been chosen, just like she had been.

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut before sitting up. Tikki let out a squeak but settled on her shoulder. "You've decided?" she guessed.

"I'm going to be too distracted if I don't know at this point," Marinette admitted, "but more importantly, I trust Chat Noir. We've gotten through situations together where I wasn't sure we'd make it. We can surprise ourselves. And you're right; we'll be a better team if we know more about each other, and maybe this way we can train together. It'll give us an edge we haven't gained from just fighting together. And we won't have to wonder when the other person is going to show up at a fight if we know they're someplace they can't transform, and we can act accordingly. We can protect each other and we can support each other. I try to talk myself out of it every time I think of the risks, but…." Marinette trailed off. "Maybe the benefits will outweigh the costs this time."

Tikki said nothing, so Marinette turned the envelope over in her hands one more time before tugging out the photograph.

It was a standard 4x6 glossy, but it had been professionally taken and the subject was immediately recognizable.

It was Adrien.

* * *

A/N: My initial plan was to leave this story here—open-ended, I know—but I've been running through different reaction scenarios and I think I've found one I can run with for a couple more chapters if anyone would be interested. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this extra-long chapter. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this story and especially to those who've left reviews!


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks for your support, everyone! I apologize for the wait for this chapter. If anyone's interested in a couple of other reaction scenarios I considered, you can find them in a post on my tumblr ladylynse under the _my writing_ tag.

* * *

Marinette stared at the photograph dumbly. It _couldn't_ be Adrien. It had to be a joke. After all, Chat Noir was nothing if not a tease, and it would have been terribly easy for him to get his hands on one of the photographs. He couldn't have known about her crush on Adrien, but with his solution of the cell phones, the photograph would've been unnecessary, and if he took this opportunity for what it was….

Marinette wasn't even sure if she should consider the alternative. It was difficult to reconcile Adrien and Chat Noir. If Chat Noir's teasing did mean anything, anything at all, then her crush on Adrien would be terribly ironic.

But that couldn't be the case.

It couldn't.

This was _Chat Noir_. And _Adrien_. They were as different as—

Marinette swallowed. They were as different as Ladybug and Marinette.

She desperately tried to remember if she'd ever seen Adrien and Chat Noir together. She knew he'd never been a victim of Hawk Moth—she would have remembered that incident with painful clarity—but hadn't he been a victim in attacks by other villains?

Unless he had been as much a victim as she had ever been. Claiming to have been entangled in Wildflower's vines was no different than claiming to have been turned into a mummy.

"Tikki," Marinette said carefully, "it's not _really_ him, is it?" She didn't want to put the words _Chat Noir_ in the same sentence as _Adrien_ , not like that.

Tikki didn't answer, so Marinette held up the picture. "Please tell me you and Chat Noir planned this as a joke."

"I'd never do that to you, Marinette." Tikki sounded hurt that Marinette had even implied the accusation, but….

"But Adrien isn't…. He _can't_ be…. I mean, Chat…." Marinette couldn't even finish. "It can't be true."

Tikki said nothing; she merely looked at Marinette.

Marinette collapsed backwards onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. "It is true." She didn't know what to do. She wasn't sure she wanted to believe it. Part of her wanted to phone Adrien right now, to wake him up and _prove_ he wasn't Chat Noir, that he couldn't be, but….

But maybe he hadn't been busy tonight because of a photoshoot; maybe he'd just arranged a meeting with Ladybug. Maybe Tikki hadn't come back to her in the crowd; maybe she'd jumped from Adrien when Marinette had run headlong into him. Maybe—

"How am I supposed to face him, Tikki?" Marinette asked, dropping the picture beside her and pushing herself back up. "He must think I'm an absolute idiot by now! I can hardly say two words to him without tripping over my own tongue, and…." She groaned and buried her face in her hands. "Chat Noir might be fond of Ladybug, but what's Adrien going to think when he finds out she's _me_?"

"Why did you open that envelope, Marinette?"

Tikki's question brought Marinette's head up with a snap. "You _know_ why," she cried. "I just told you. Because I was too curious for my own good!" This situation suddenly felt far too much like Pandora's Box for comfort. How much harm had she done by looking, by finding out the truth?

"And?"

"And I don't think I can call this lucky, however you might want to spin it."

"Marinette." Tikki seemed to be repeating her name in an effort to keep Marinette's focus on her. "What did you say to Chat Noir earlier?"

"You mean Adrien." That idea was definitely going to take some getting used to. Being Chat Noir didn't make Adrien less in her eyes, exactly. Marinette knew how difficult it was to juggle a double life and couldn't imagine how hard it must be to sneak off when everyone seemed to have eyes on you—although that might explain why sometimes Chat Noir cut it awfully close when it came to showing up when there was an attack. But Chat Noir was so….

So _not Adrien_.

Except he was.

Adrien was normally so quiet, and Chat Noir was not. But Marinette knew what freedom wearing the mask gave, and from the little she knew of Adrien's father, she couldn't exactly blame Adrien for taking the opportunity to relax—if routinely fighting villains to save the city and everyone in it could be called relaxing, at any rate. The thought almost made his puns bearable.

All right, she'd admit it. She liked them. They were terrible, but she liked them. She'd always thought they suited him, and maybe this was why: because as Chat Noir, he could express himself. He didn't need to worry what anyone else might think when he was just Chat Noir, hero of Paris, with the lovely Ladybug by his side.

No, she didn't have that quite right. He cared what _Ladybug_ thought. The thought made Marinette's stomach clench. She wasn't sure what Adrien would do when he found out the truth. Open his eyes, perhaps, and see that Ladybug wasn't at all like he'd thought her.

Marinette almost wanted to cry. One of the reasons she'd never taken Chat Noir's flirting seriously—besides the fact they were almost always under attack at the time—was because she'd had her heart set on Adrien. She hadn't wanted to consider anyone else, not even to spare Nathanaël further embarrassment in front of everyone in class. But if she'd even humoured Chat Noir just once, then maybe….

Well, there wasn't a maybe to even consider, despite all the things Ladybug and Chat Noir had done together. Or all the times he'd held her hand. Or all the times he'd given her _that_ smile. Or the time she'd kissed him….

But that had been to save him from an akuma, and he didn't remember it, and she'd never told him what had happened. She couldn't think on that right now. She needed to focus on the facts. Being Chat Noir made Adrien more, not less. The same was not true with Ladybug. If she hadn't reminded him today of how much of a fool she was, she might not have quite so much doubt, but since that incident was fresh on his mind….

If Adrien weren't so nice, he'd laugh in her face when she told him who she was. But he'd be too kind to do that, so he'd just look at her and give her that small, sad smile, and….

"What did you tell him earlier?" Tikki asked again. She'd flown up to hover at Marinette's eye level. She didn't look angry; she didn't sound it, either. Marinette would almost rather she did. Tikki might never say it, but Marinette was sure she would have preferred waiting.

It made Marinette wish she _had_ met Plagg, just so she had an idea of how different the two kwami were.

"I don't know," Marinette admitted, raking one hand through her hair. "Everything I could think of. That we should keep it a secret. That it wasn't safe to know. But then I just went against everything I said and _ruined_ —"

"You told him it was wrong to know for a selfish reason," interrupted Tikki.

"And me being curious _wasn't_ selfish?" Marinette sighed. "I appreciate you trying to help me, Tikki, but this is my fault."

"You didn't just want to know because you were curious," Tikki reminded her, "and he didn't want to tell you just because he wanted you to know. You both had other reasons, and you can't ignore them now."

"I need to accept the consequences and make the best out of my mistake, you mean."

"I never said it was a mistake." Tikki settled on Marinette's knee. "You made a choice. It would be a mistake to decide right now that it was the wrong one before you've even tried to make the best of it."

Marinette swallowed. "I thought you figured I should wait. I thought you just didn't want to stop me because you wanted me to make my own choices."

"I can't predict what's going to happen," Tikki said simply. "None of us can. We can analyze patterns, we can guess, but we can't know with absolute certainty. I would have waited, yes. Plagg would've been into that envelope before it was out of Chat Noir's hands if he'd realized what it was, and knowing him he'd have suspected it. What we would have done doesn't matter, Marinette. What matters is what _is_ done and what you're going to do next."

"I don't _know_ what I'm going to do next." She couldn't just _tell_ him, just go up and introduce herself as Ladybug. Well, she _could_ , but that option terrified her, so she wasn't going to consider it. Not unless she couldn't come up with something better, and there had to be something better.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know! How should I know that?" Marinette bolted to her feet and started pacing, suddenly so full of nervous energy that she was beginning to shake. Tikki, who had clearly anticipated this, righted herself after only one flip and hovered in the middle of the room while Marinette circled her. "I can't just say it to his face, can I? What if he…. It's _Adrien_ , Tikki. Adrien! And you heard me when I was trying to talk to him earlier. I was—"

"Scared."

Marinette stopped and whirled on her kwami. "I wasn't scared," she said defensively. "I was just…scared." She groaned. "Not a terrified scared, like I've been fighting some of Hawk Moth's victims." She would _never_ forget what had nearly happened with Timebreaker or the time she'd seen her parents trapped in giant bubbles. Or how she'd seen her father in the bakery below, framed by the flames…. "It was just a normal scared. Fear of rejection, I guess, which I got anyway, because Adrien's Chat Noir and he had to meet Ladybug tonight!" Her hands were shaking again. She couldn't make them stop.

"But you don't need to be scared," Tikki said practically, as if it were that easy. "Not of this. Especially since you must know by now how he feels about—"

"Don't say it." Marinette took a shuddering breath. "If Chat Noir—if _Adrien_ —thinks so highly of Ladybug, what's he going to think when he finds out she's me? Especially after earlier! What if he winds up so disillusioned we can't even fight together? What if—?"

"Plagg hasn't made a poor choice in centuries," Tikki interrupted, "and you mustn't know Adrien _or_ Chat Noir nearly as well as you think if you think so poorly of him."

" _Poorly_?" The word nearly came out as a screech. "I don't think _poorly_ of him!" But Tikki was right, if this was true. She _didn't_ know Adrien or Chat Noir nearly as well as she'd thought, not if she hadn't realized the truth before this—or realized how much of both of them she'd never seen. She wondered what blend of the two was Adrien's true self. She hated herself for not knowing, but she could only guess, and all this mess had proved was that Tikki was right: she _didn't_ know him half as well as she'd thought. Her mind was in a panic over the very idea; her heart didn't care, and she couldn't tell if it was pounding because she was terrified or thrilled now that she knew the truth.

"Then why do you think so little of his judgement, of his character? You aren't obliged to tell him who you are, Marinette, but do not let _that_ be the reason to hold you back."

Marinette stared at Tikki for a few long seconds before admitting, "I don't think I could tell him to his face. Maybe I could just write a note or…." Her eyes had strayed from Tikki and wandered back to her bed, where she could see Adrien's photograph. "Or maybe I can just return the favour in the same way." Whatever Tikki said and whatever the consequences might be, Marinette did intend to tell Adrien who she was. She had never lied when she'd insisted that she trusted him, after all.

But that didn't mean she had to be there when he realized the truth. It didn't mean she'd have to watch the disappointment set in. It would be better this way. Easier for both of them. It would give them time to think before they ran into each other, time to figure out what to say and how to act.

Time to process the truth.

Marinette pulled her photo album off her bookshelf and sat cross-legged on the floor, distracting herself by trying to find a photograph that only had her in it. Almost everything that was recent was only in digital form, but she thought she'd had…. _There_. It had been taken last summer when Alya had insisted on kidnapping Marinette to 'get her out of the flour, away from the sewing machine, and into the sunlight', although Marinette highly suspected Alya had simply been looking for a reason to avoid babysitting her younger siblings just once. There was nothing particularly special about the picture, but they'd climbed a tree and hidden in the canopy to talk in private. Marinette had been sitting on a thick bough, framed by bright green leaves and frozen mid-laugh.

It had been a good day.

Marinette had the picture into a sealed envelope in no time flat, working methodically because she was too afraid to think, too afraid she might be tempted to pretend—for however long she could—that she had never looked at Chat Noir's envelope and had no intention of doing so. But Chat Noir—Adrien—didn't deserve that, and she wanted to prove that she hadn't been lying when she'd insisted that she trusted him. She left the envelope blank, too, just like Adrien had. He was certainly right in thinking that if anyone found it, they wouldn't know what it was. They wouldn't know what it meant.

The thought that someone else might find it was the only reason she didn't include a note, even if would have taken her the rest of the night to compose one sentence.

"I'll give it to him tomorrow," Marinette said aloud. She looked at Tikki for guidance, but the kwami didn't say anything. Marinette sighed. "Tomorrow," she repeated. With any luck, Hawk Moth would be trying to find another strategy to figure out their identities and they'd be spared another attack. She didn't normally patrol as Ladybug during the day, even on weekends when she was more likely to have time, but tomorrow…. She'd be visible tomorrow, and then she'd face Chat Noir—face Adrien—and let him know the truth.

* * *

Ladybug's appearances began about midday. Adrien had managed to sort things out with the cell phones in the morning, but Nathalie had long since booked him in for a piano recital at one of the seniors' centres. Her reasoning was to build relations, to give back to the community, but Adrien went because he knew how much the people enjoyed it, not because he didn't want to displease his father. He couldn't disappear and skip the recital when there wasn't an actual attack, no matter how much he wanted to meet up with Ladybug.

He did beg freedom afterward under the pretense of meeting up with Nino, though. His father might not approve of Nino, but as Nino had not come to the house since that first time, the staff had evidently decided that Gabriel did not intend to interfere with his son's friendships unless he was presented with more evidence that Adrien's choice had been a poor one. It was not approval or acceptance; Adrien did not pretend it was. It was merely tolerance.

But as Adrien had not been outright forbidden to see Nino again—especially after the Bubbler incident, since he suspected his father knew who had been behind _that_ —he took the measure of freedom for what it was and comforted himself with the fact that he could keep his friend without having to disobey his father.

Besides, he did hope to hang out with Nino later today; he just wanted to catch up with Ladybug first.

By the time Chat Noir was on Ladybug's tail, it was the middle of the afternoon. It didn't take Adrien long to realize that Ladybug was not following any of her usual patrol routes. It was the off season for tourism and a weekend, but the typical places in the city where they stopped to rest and survey the city—everywhere from landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe to the skyscrapers in La Défense—were avoided. She was haunting residential areas, but in a pattern that baffled Adrien; even when he used his baton to track her, she never stayed anywhere long enough for him to catch up. Following sightings of her on Alya's blog didn't help, either, as he always arrived too late and she seemed to be moving randomly so he couldn't predict her movements.

And she wouldn't answer when he called.

He was worried about her, but given that nothing on the Ladyblog suggested something was amiss, he didn't think Hawk Moth was behind Ladybug's behaviour.

He didn't realize what Ladybug was up to until he finally spotted her in Le Quartier Asiatique near Les Olympiades. She was crouched on the rooftop of one of the residential towers, her eyes fixed on the tower opposite her, and she looked about to cry. Adrien followed her gaze downward and spotted a girl out on one of the lower balconies. She looked a little younger than him and bore a striking resemblance to Marinette—and, now that he thought about it, to Ladybug.

The truth hit Adrien then, and he hated himself for not figuring it out sooner. Ladybug had been tracking down Flamethrower's would-be victims. If he were to guess, she wanted to assure herself that they were all right. He wasn't sure how she'd managed it. Perhaps she'd stopped in to speak with Sabrina's father or had popped into one of the fire stations; despite the Copycat incident, they were still trusted, though he had no doubt it had been far easier for her to wrest that information from someone than it would have been for him.

"What happened yesterday wasn't your fault," he reminded Ladybug as he crouched beside her. Hawk Moth had gotten lucky, being able to prey upon someone who was tired of being overlooked, someone who had spent enough time in various parts of the city watching people to have an idea of where to look for a Ladybug lookalike. Adrien wasn't sure for the reason behind Christophe's fiery anger _besides_ being looked down upon or outright ignored. If Hawk Moth had promised that he would get noticed, that he would get revenge on those he perceived had wronged him in exchange for finding Ladybug and taking her Miraculous, well….

It really wasn't surprising that things had turned out as they had.

Ladybug gave no indication that he had startled her, so he'd been right in thinking she'd seen him coming. "Maybe not," she allowed softly, "but it still feels like it was." She retreated from the roof's edge, and he followed her.

"I brought the cell phones," he said, not sure he could talk her out of her conviction now and suspecting she might want a change in topic. He pulled them out of the small bag he carried.

Ladybug stared at hers when he handed it to her. She had a small purse slung crosswise across her chest, no doubt in anticipation of receiving the phone, but she looked lost. "My lady?"

Ladybug's hand tightened around the phone before she tucked it away. She pulled an envelope from the purse instead and passed it to him. "It's my picture," she said quietly. "Just like…just like you gave me yours." The hand holding her offered envelope shook slightly.

Adrien stared at the envelope and had to force the next words out of his mouth. "If you truly do not wish to—"

"No, I do. Please."

Adrien took the envelope carefully, handling it as if it contained a priceless treasure—which, to him, it did. Ladybug's secret. Her true identity. He could finally know who she was.

Adrien forced himself to tuck the envelope containing the truth about Ladybug away for now. "Thank you," he said softly.

"It's a failsafe, like you said," Ladybug continued. "Even with the cell phones, something might go wrong. We might need this to fall back on." Her voice sounded…strained, almost, as if this were the last thing she wanted.

He wanted to ask if she'd given any more consideration to opening _his_ envelope but decided he'd better not push his luck. He'd rather continue their conversation, and Ladybug looked like she might flee again if he kept pursuing the point. "I cannot say how much I appreciate your trust in me, my lady."

"It still isn't a matter of trust," she reminded him. "It's another route to the truth to be taken if it's needed. It didn't feel like it at the time, but we were lucky. _I_ was lucky. We had time. We won't always have that luxury, and if you need to find me for whatever reason and can't reach me through the phone or the blog…."

Adrien grinned at her. "And now you are assuming that I will know who you are when you aren't wearing your mask."

Ladybug didn't react to his teasing like she normally did. She just pursed her lips and said, "You'll find me." She gave no explanation for why she thought that now, especially as she had had a different opinion last night. Perhaps the photograph itself held a clue that would help him pinpoint his search for her. He had not needed to extend her a similar courtesy; he knew he was recognizable enough.

Adrien reached out a tentative hand and put it on her shoulder. "Are you all right, my lady?"

Ladybug stared at him before saying, "I'm fine."

Adrien didn't believe that, especially since he'd realized how she'd spent the last few hours. He rather suspected she was more shaken by yesterday's events than she let on. The loss of her Miraculous, the threat of exposure, the guilt—however misplaced—over what had happened with Flamethrower…. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would perhaps have realized that then was not the best time to insist she be entrusted with his secret.

"You know I have every confidence in you," Adrien continued as he dropped his other hand on her other shoulder.

Ladybug took a deep, shuddering breath and then shrugged his hands off. "I'm fine, kitty," she said, despite all evidence to the contrary. She still looked like she was about to cry.

"You may be purrfect, my lady, but I very much doubt you are feeling purrfectly fine."

There it was, a choked sob. It tore at his heart. Ladybug was supposed to be confident, not broken. "No one was hurt yesterday," Adrien said quietly. He hugged her, and she didn't pull away. "You know that. You made sure of it. You were strong."

"I was a fool. I _am_ a fool." Ladybug leaned against his chest and finally wrapped her arms around him. "I was trying to pretend I didn't make a big mistake yesterday. I'm sorry, Chat Noir."

"My lady, your Miraculous—"

"I don't mean that." She released him and pulled back. "But thank you. Again. I'll never be able to say that enough."

She stepped away and pulled out her yo-yo. Adrien reached for her arm. "Ladybug, please, you can talk to me."

For some reason, the words made her laugh. It was a small, desperate laugh, and he didn't like hearing it. It wasn't her usual laugh. "Oh, kitty, that's my problem. I'm still not sure I can."

Adrien frowned, not understanding her. "But—"

"I should go. Just…." Ladybug bit her lip. "Just think before you decide to open that envelope, however much you think you want to know."

Adrien let Ladybug go, but he didn't want to. He wanted to question her—he still didn't know exactly what she was talking about—and he wanted to cheer her up, to see her smile again. A part of him wanted to confess how he felt. She might not have looked to see who he was yet, but knowing she held his secret was at least a step closer to her knowing, and….

And he couldn't bring himself to talk to her, either. Maybe that's what she'd meant. They never did have much time for visits like this, even though he tried to make the most of it whenever he could. He wished they did have more time to get to know each other. At the very least, he wished Ladybug wouldn't shrug off his advances, but he couldn't get her to look at him twice, and….

And it was hard.

Harder than he wanted to admit.

But if they knew each other, if he could be with her when she wasn't Ladybug and he wasn't Chat Noir, then maybe it _wouldn't_ be so hard because maybe she'd come to realize how he felt.

Adrien knew that was no guarantee that he wouldn't have his heart broken, but if he could at least talk to her, then maybe his hope wouldn't be so misplaced.

Adrien pulled the envelope Ladybug had given him out of his pocket and stared at it for a minute. Her secret— _their_ secrets—once shared, could be another beginning for them. It could bring them closer together, and then he would be one step closer to winning his lady's heart.

Adrien slit open the envelope carefully with one sharp claw.

 _One step closer_ ….


	7. Chapter 7

The envelope contained a precious treasure. Adrien knew that. He just wasn't sure it wasn't a forbidden treasure, whatever Plagg said.

And he didn't want to make a mistake now that could cost him everything.

He wanted to look. He'd almost looked, countless times, but he kept picturing Ladybug in the moment she'd entrusted him with her secret. She'd been shaken from more than just Flamethrower and everything that had happened beforehand, and she'd been…wary? Reluctant? Not afraid, but…. Hesitant, maybe. He wasn't sure. He just knew she hadn't been completely sure of herself. She'd been more vulnerable than confident, so he kept arguing with himself over what he should do, whether he should look or not. He kept trying to decide if she'd given up her identity simply because she hadn't been thinking clearly, and now that was all he could think about.

Instead of meeting up with Nino, Adrien claimed he wasn't feeling well (something not entirely untrue, given his churning stomach) and apologized to Nino once he was safely home. He spent the rest of Saturday curled up on his bed staring at the envelope while ignoring Plagg's near-constant insistence that he _just look in it already_. Plagg didn't see the harm in looking, but despite trying to explain it, Adrien soon realized the conversation had changed into Plagg demanding more camembert. (This was apparently a subject not to be discussed when not adequately fortified, and Adrien was feeling generous so he indulged Plagg even though he himself had no appetite at all.)

Truthfully, Adrien wouldn't have done anything differently on Sunday had he not had commitments, but Nathalie had reminded him of the appointment with the tailor over breakfast and it had been a long time since he'd been able to lie to her about anything _besides_ his activities as Chat Noir. Still, once he got there, his head wasn't in it and everyone noticed. Everyone except his father, of course. He didn't have any chance to see his father on Sunday. But everyone else, from Nathalie to Nino, certainly knew something was up.

Nino, however, was the only one who cared enough to ask as opposed to assume.

"C'mon, dude," he said that afternoon when Adrien been able to meet up with him, "we were supposed to hang out. Y'know, enjoy your free time, especially since you bailed on me yesterday." The words were said teasingly but with enough concern that Adrien wondered for a moment if his mostly-sleepless night was showing on his face—despite his usual activities. Still, Nino moved on with barely a pause, adding, "If you don't want to go to a movie, at least come up with something else to do. That, or tell me what's up with you."

Nino had waited until they'd reached the park nearest his house to dig his heels in. It was on the way to the theatre—a movie _had_ been the original plan—but Adrien had been quieter than usual all day. His tailor had finally called off the fitting, claiming he couldn't work with Adrien if he didn't even _try_ to stop fidgeting and cooperate, and had promptly phoned Nathalie to reschedule. Adrien knew he would be in for a lecture when he got home, from her even if this rebelliousness didn't warrant a warning from his father, and he'd waved off his driver in favour of walking to Nino's. He'd hoped the walk would clear his head.

He'd been wrong.

And Nino could tell.

"Sorry," Adrien said. "I've just got a lot on my mind." He still carried Ladybug's picture with him—he couldn't bear to leave it at home—so he had it tucked into the pocket over his heart. Plagg occupied the other pocket, as Adrien didn't want to risk any harm coming to the picture—be that from claws, drool, or 'accidental' ingestion.

Adrien trusted Plagg with a lot, but there were many, many other things with which he did _not_ trust the kwami.

"Girl trouble?"

Adrien shot Nino a surprised look—how could he possibly know?—and Nino snorted, dissolving into laughter. "I was _kidding_ , dude. Seriously? You have girl trouble? _You_?"

"It's complicated," Adrien hedged, trying to avoid the subject.

"If it's related to girls, it's _always_ complicated. C'mon, who is it? Can't be Chloé unless you're trying to figure out how to get rid of her, but, seriously, she's—"

"Can we please not talk about this?"

Nino shrugged. "Hey, let me have my moment, okay? You don't need to work to get girls to actually notice you exist. So if you're not just trying to shake someone, colour me interested."

Adrien hesitated. He told Nino almost everything. The only one who really knew more of the truth than Nino was Plagg—and Tikki, now. "I'm not trying to shake someone," he said slowly. "I'm just…." He trailed off. "I don't really know myself."

Nino stared at him for a full five seconds before the truth dawned. He groaned, and Adrien knew exactly which conclusion Nino had reached. He'd been careless with his tongue once, and Nino—being the good friend he was—had never let him forget it. "Dude, I know you're, like, a closet fan of Ladybug and Chat Noir that would rival Alya, but c'mon. Ladybug's probably _with_ Chat Noir. I mean, they fight together all the time. You can't seriously be trying to figure out how to catch her eye."

Adrien _wished_ Ladybug was with Chat Noir in that way. "We don't know they're together," he pointed out instead. As much as he didn't want to have this argument, it was better to have it out again than to try to think of some way to discuss his real problem with Nino. He couldn't exactly ask what to do about the picture in the envelope and get advice when it came to figuring out if Ladybug really did want him to know the truth or not.

Plagg really was no help. The additional camembert had only made him sleepy, and when he was awake, he'd only expressed his disbelief that Adrien had opened the envelope but not actually looked inside. It didn't matter to him that Adrien was wary because Ladybug still hadn't seemed comfortable with the idea. Plagg didn't think that was a good enough argument, especially when Adrien really wanted to know the truth.

Adrien wanted Ladybug to be happy with the idea of him knowing, and unlike Plagg, he didn't think her giving him the envelope necessarily meant that. He didn't want her to feel _obliged_ , and her tone had contradicted her words even when she'd insisted that she wanted him to know. He was inclined to believe what he'd seen than what she'd said; the tremor in her arm, the slight crease in her forehead, the tension in her shoulders, the way she'd bitten her lip and avoided looking him in the eye—that all told him more than her words.

Adrien had allowed himself to be caught up in his daydreams of future possibilities long enough to open the envelope. He wasn't sure whether to be thankful or not that his concerns over what Ladybug might really want had stopped him from ever looking inside.

He really did want to know the truth.

But the truth wasn't worth losing her favour forever.

He could wait a little longer if it meant she would still smile when she saw him.

Nino snorted, not buying Adrien's current argument any more than he had last time. "The only reason they wouldn't be is if they're already tight with someone else. Seriously, dude, can't you pick someone attainable for your crushes?"

Adrien smiled sheepishly, and Nino thankfully changed the subject. "Okay, fine, so what're we gonna see?" He started naming off the newest releases, but it wasn't until they got to the theatre and ran into Alya and Marinette just inside the building that Adrien remembered he'd never gotten back to Marinette when she'd invited him to the movies on Friday. In the scramble to return Ladybug's Miraculous and the wonder over if she'd looked to find out the truth or if he should look in his own envelope, he'd completely forgotten about his run-in with poor Marinette.

Judging by the way she went red and tried to hide behind Alya, she hadn't.

"Hey, guys," Alya said easily. "What brings you here?"

"Adrien needed a distraction," Nino replied before Adrien had a chance to speak.

Alya grinned. "So did Marinette. Maybe we should just let them distract each other?"

Marinette squeaked.

Adrien wished she weren't so uncomfortable around him. He liked her. She had a bright smile and a lilting laugh that always managed to lift his spirits, and she was a genuinely nice person. She was a great friend to Alya, a good friend to Nino—and to him, even considering the few real conversations they'd had; he thought he could count her as a friend—and friendly to everyone. Well, the general exception was Chloé, to whom she was typically decent and occasionally less than tolerable, but considering that Chloé treated everyone outside of her social class as unworthy of being scum on her shoe, Adrien couldn't exactly blame Marinette.

Chloé had gotten…pushier and more self-centred as she'd grown up, particularly in public. She brandished her name like a shield or a battering ram, depending on the circumstances, perfectly content with using it to get her way or to make her point. She didn't try to rein in her emotions or hide what she thought about things. She didn't fear being swallowed in her father's shadow. She didn't wish people would forget she was Chloé _Bourgeois_ and just see her as _Chloé_. She isolated more people that way than she realized.

But Marinette was the baker's daughter, not the mayor's. She was brave, funny, smart, and had a great eye for design. He _wanted_ to get to know her better, at the very least as well as he knew Chloé. He'd seen a side to Marinette when he'd protected her as Chat Noir that he'd never observed first hand as Adrien Agreste, and he…. He wanted to see more of that.

Yet whenever he thought he'd seen her glancing at him, she studiously avoided his gaze. He wasn't sure why. He tried to get her to feel more comfortable around him, but he was making about as much progress when it came to being Marinette's friend (a _good_ friend, not just a school friend) as he was when it came to getting Ladybug to notice that his heart belonged to her.

Not getting back to Marinette after she'd asked him to go to the movies had probably been a major step backwards on that front, though. But perhaps he could still salvage something from that. "I did take a rain check on a movie invite the other day," Adrien said slowly, glancing at Nino to make sure it was all right with him.

Nino's grin made it perfectly clear he was okay with that—although Adrien wasn't sure if that was because Nino could spend time with Alya or because Adrien wouldn't be able to mull over what to do about Ladybug.

Alya looked ecstatic. Marinette looked like she might faint. Adrien turned to Alya, about to ask what she thought the four of them should see, but Alya beat him to the punch. "Great! Adrien, Marinette, you catch that movie." She pushed Marinette toward Adrien. Neither of them was expecting that, and Marinette collided with him—which said absolutely nothing for his reflexes. Clearly, his head wasn't in a game and he was very lucky they weren't under attack at the moment. Marinette mumbled her apologies at the same time he did, but Alya had already moved on and turned a blinding smile on Nino. "We should talk about that stunt you pulled with Manon on Friday."

Nino suddenly looked a good deal less comfortable. He chuckled nervously. "Uh, right. But after the movie, yeah? What do you think we should see?" He turned to Marinette in a vain attempt to avoid Alya's eye. "Did you have anything in mind?"

She wordlessly shook her head.

"Oh, they can go on ahead of us," Alya said, grabbing Nino's arm. "You and me? Now that Manon's not here, we're going to talk about why we don't promise kids ice cream to behave when it's nearly time for supper."

Adrien shrugged when Nino shot him a desperate look. He wasn't sure how to rescue Nino from _that_ kind of danger. He looked back at Marinette and smiled. "Why don't we see what's playing while we're waiting?" he suggested.

"Good idea." The words were a whisper. Marinette looked spooked by something, and Adrien suddenly felt awful. _Of course_ Marinette looked spooked by something. She might not have been home when the fire had broken out, but she would have heard what had happened from her parents if no one else.

He hadn't thought to check Alya's blog for Friday's updates, but it no doubt held an account of everyone—by story if not name—who had been affected by Flamethrower that could be found, scrounged either through various media outlets or followers of the Ladyblog. Alya had probably spent half the night on the phone, trying to keep her friend calm, and the other half of the night searching for a pattern—and if anyone could find a pattern, it would be Alya. If she hadn't found something Friday night, she would have kept searching all day Saturday—whatever part of it she hadn't spent with Marinette, at least—and possibly a good chunk of last night and this morning, too.

Adrien hoped she _hadn't_ found a pattern in it all, though. Alya might not realize why Marinette had been targeted, but if she had, then Alya had every reason to be afraid for Marinette. And if Marinette had even an inkling that she _had_ been targeted, that Flamethrower's choice of victims hadn't been random….

Really, it was a wonder either of them looked as well as they did. He'd been up half the night contemplating looking in the envelope and arguing with Plagg about what Ladybug meant and what she really wanted—he would have appreciated talking to Tikki when it came to that—but he was _used_ to being up half the night. The girls certainly had no reason to sacrifice sleep on so regular a basis, even if Alya _did_ sometimes go out to try to catch Ladybug and Chat Noir in action.

So of course Alya would bring Marinette to a movie, to try to distract her with a story, with something that wasn't real so that she didn't have time to think about what could have been—what almost was or would have been, had he not been able to return Ladybug's Miraculous. It was lucky indeed that despite the delay of the damage restoration when it came to Blademaster, no one had realized Ladybug had been missing, unable to transform—Alya included, as far as he could tell, since he'd have heard of it from Nino.

There was also the matter of Philippe. Adrien really should try to find him before their next practice. He might have no memory of what had happened, but everyone else did and Adrien didn't care for a repeat, however it might be brought on.

But Marinette was in front of him, not Philippe, and although she hadn't strayed from his side, she was staring at her shoes, not at him or the movie posters that lined the walls of the theatre. "I heard about the fire at your parents' bakery," he said quietly. "I know I wouldn't exactly understand, but if you ever need someone else to talk to…." He trailed off, not sure what to say. Marinette had probably discussed everything at length with Alya and she more than likely had no desire to talk about this to anyone else. He was already beginning to regret bringing it up.

Marinette's head jerked up and she stared at him, eyes wide. "W-what?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear about the fire." What had Ladybug said? "Erasing the damage doesn't erase the feelings. The memories, I mean. So I'll listen, if you ever want to talk."

Marinette had gone white. Her mouth worked, and for a moment, nothing came out. Finally, "Um, uh, thank you." She swallowed. "That's really, ah, nice of you, Adrien."

Adrien smiled again. Marinette made a funny sound in the back of her throat and then excused herself to get a drink of water from the fountain. Adrien sighed and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to return. Some friend he was turning out to be. _This_ was a prime example of his luck.

A quick scan of the crowd revealed that Alya had dragged Nino out of view, whether that was back outside or over to the arcade area where they had tables. Adrien checked his pockets; Plagg was half asleep, and the envelope….

Adrien froze.

The envelope was gone.

The envelope _with Ladybug's picture_ was gone.

"Plagg," Adrien hissed. "Wake up."

The kwami jerked and muttered something about cheese.

Adrien scowled. "Plagg!"

Plagg yawned and blinked open his eyes. "What?"

Confident that Plagg was awake, Adrien let his jacket drop back to again hang loosely open. He didn't need to see Plagg to talk to him. "Where's the envelope?" he murmured, trying not to move his lips.

"How should I know?"

"You were _right beside it_."

There was a snort. "It was in your _other_ pocket, not this one. I don't keep track of your things."

"Plagg, it was _Ladybug's envelope_."

"I didn't eat it."

"Plagg—"

"Why do you think I've eaten your stuff every time you lose something?"

Adrien growled and straightened up. It had to be around here somewhere. He just needed to retrace his steps…and hope no one had found it and thrown it out, thinking the most precious treasure in the world was mere garbage.

Adrien kept his eyes glued to the floor, only aware enough of his surroundings to avoid running into someone, but he saw no sign of the envelope. He _knew_ he'd had it after he'd met up with Nino—he'd checked—which meant the envelope was somewhere between the theatre and Nino's house. If it hadn't been thrown out or blown away.

He should never have taken it with him where it could get lost. He should have left it at home. He could have hidden it well enough. He just hadn't wanted to leave his lady behind. He'd wanted to keep her picture with him, by his heart.

And now he'd lost Ladybug's picture, the key to her true identity, and….

"Ah…. Adrien?" The hesitant voice was enough to catch his attention, and Adrien looked up to see Marinette smiling weakly at him. "Did you lose something? Do you need help looking?"

Sweet, sweet Marinette. Adrien smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Marinette, but it's just something that fell out of my pocket, and it can be anywhere between here and Nino's." He couldn't let her realize how important this was to him when he couldn't even explain what it was.

"We don't have to see a movie," Marinette said. Adrien realized she'd lost her stutter and had said three entire sentences to him without tripping over her tongue. Having something to focus on seemed to help her, and she was acting more like when she'd helped Chat Noir. "If this is important to you, I can help you find it. Just tell me what you're looking for." Adrien didn't answer right away, but fortunately she looked over her shoulder, already distracting herself. Frowning slightly, she asked, "Where are Alya and Nino?"

"I didn't notice when they disappeared," Adrien admitted.

"I'll text her and…." Marinette trailed off as she pulled out her phone. Her eyebrows shot up as she noticed a line of messages on the screen. "I'm clearly missing something," she muttered as she scrolled through the list before punching in her password. "Alya must have been texting me for most of the last five minutes."

"Then you should find her and talk to her," Adrien said, not liking that he had to use this as an excuse to get rid of her but not sure how to explain what he was really looking for. How could he tell her he was looking for an envelope but wasn't even sure of its contents? "I'm really sorry, Marinette. I promise I'll make this up to you. We can go to a movie another time. Text me when you find Alya and Nino, all right? I'm going to keep searching."

He waited only long enough to hear her distracted agreement before he fled, hurrying to retrace his steps before it was too late.

* * *

Marinette blinked when she looked up and realized Adrien had already gone. Whatever he was missing was clearly important to him, even if he didn't want to tell her exactly what it was. She wondered if he'd lost Plagg. Given how she'd felt with Tikki—well, _without_ Tikki, to be precise—she wouldn't put it past him. Especially since, despite all her expectations, Adrien— _Chat Noir_ —had not yet looked inside the envelope Ladybug had given him.

Marinette wasn't sure what to think of that. She'd expected him to open it immediately, and she certainly hadn't expected to run into Adrien today. Adrien might be Chat Noir, but her brain still had trouble reconciling the two of them and consequently she'd defaulted to her usual nervous self around Adrien. She wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved that he hadn't yet looked in the envelope, especially since she knew he would—likely sooner rather than later.

But perhaps that was for the best. Sharing her secret with Chat Noir was different than sharing her secret with Alya would be, and not just because Alya ran the Ladyblog. Alya would keep her secret if it came to it. Marinette was sure of that. But she didn't want to put Alya in that situation if she could help it, and Chat Noir…. Chat Noir knew what he was up against. He knew about Hawk Moth, knew what they were up against and what the risks were. Alya, however much she understood about the process of the transformations, did not.

Marinette checked her other cell phone, but there were no messages from Chat Noir. Plagg likely was safe, then. She might not have had the nerve to tell Adrien she'd looked in the envelope he'd given her—she would tell him, eventually, once she figured out how—but if Plagg _had_ gone missing for whatever reason, Chat Noir would tell Ladybug. It had been her plan when the reverse had happened, after all. Help, however little, was still help.

In the meantime, she could figure out what the heck Alya meant by all her messages. Amid the garbled _Told you so's_ and _You totally owe me's_ was the general gist of _Dreams come true, girl! Meet me ASAP. We have planning to do._

Since Marinette's brain was still stuck in the _Adrien is Chat Noir_ rut, Alya's messages made less sense than usual. Marinette didn't bother asking what Alya meant in her reply, though; it sounded like something best explained in person. _Where are you? You still with Nino?_

 _Café across the street_.

Of course. Alya meant well and had probably hoped to give Marinette time alone with Adrien. She wouldn't put it past Alya and Nino to have set up this meeting behind her back, either. She didn't know if Alya had actually said anything about her crush on Adrien to Nino—she rather doubted it—but Nino would do a lot for Alya without demanding a full explanation. Or any explanation, really.

Marinette headed across the street and spotted them easily. Both had drinks and there was a partial piece of _pain au chocolat_ left on a plate between them. That alone confirmed Marinette's suspicion that they hadn't _really_ intended to join her and Adrien for a movie, but what confused her was the fact that Nino had drawn his chair next to Alya and they were both looking at— Was that a _picture_?

Was that _her_ picture?

Marinette blanched, suddenly having a very good idea of what Adrien had lost.

Alya must have noticed her expression. "No, no, it's fine," she said quickly, gesturing to a seat. She hesitated as Marinette dropped down next to Nino. He held the photograph, and a quick glance confirmed what Marinette had suspected. "I mean, it _is_ fine, right? Why'd Adrien run out on you?"

"He said he lost something," Marinette murmured. "He was going to look for it."

"We found it," Nino said, passing her picture along to her.

" _I_ found it," Alya corrected. "I noticed it after you two walked off, and I wouldn't let Nino interrupt you once I realized what it was. You _do_ realize what this means, right?"

It meant Adrien was Chat Noir and that he no longer had the means to see that she was Ladybug. "It means you think Adrien dropped an envelope and you opened it?"

"Hey, have some faith in us. It was _already_ open. And your picture slid partway out of it, and when we figured out that Adrien had dropped it…." Nino shrugged and jerked his head toward Alya. "You'd think she had figured out Ladybug's identity."

Alya gave Nino a playful punch in the shoulder, but Marinette couldn't even appreciate the irony of Nino's words. Adrien _had_ opened the envelope? And he still didn't know who she was? Hadn't he _looked_?

Or had he looked but thought she _hadn't_ looked and had just been acting so as not to give away that he was Chat Noir before he thought she was ready to know just like she'd been doing with him?

Marinette groaned and dropped her head into her hands. This was giving her a headache.

"No, no, no, you don't understand, girl!" Alya exclaimed. "Adrien has your picture! That's gotta mean he likes you! Just look at the signs. How often he waves at you? Winks? Pats you on the back? Goes out of his way to give you a compliment?"

Marinette wished it were that simple, but Alya was reading way more into this than she knew. Adrien only had her picture because it was _Ladybug_ 's picture. Alya clearly hadn't stopped to think about how Adrien had _gotten_ said picture. Marinette sighed. If an ounce of this were true, she'd be head over heels, but it wasn't, and she couldn't pretend otherwise. She raised her head. "Alya, that's my picture."

Alya laughed. "That's my point!"

"No, I mean, it's _my_ picture. You took it, remember? Last summer? I was…." Marinette had no idea what to claim she had been going to do with it. "I was debating giving it to Adrien," she said carefully, trying to mix truth into her lie, "and lost my nerve. He hasn't even seen it."

"It's open."

"Because I'd decided against it and was going to take the picture back and…." Marinette shook her head. "Never mind. You guys misread the situation. I wish you hadn't, but you did."

Nino blinked at her. Alya looked equally as blank, for once at a loss of words. "But, wait, let me just get this straight," Nino said at last. "You like Adrien, right?"

Marinette moaned but nodded, sure her face was as red as Ladybug's suit by this point.

"So we'll just work on setting you up! C'mon, I can totally help. I've got your back, dude."

Marinette could imagine Nino's help. It would probably be along the same lines as Alya dialling Adrien's number and handing the ringing phone to her, except Nino would probably do something in person to shove them together. It _was_ easier to speak with Adrien when she imagined him as Chat Noir—Tikki had been right about that after all, for all that it had been impossible before she'd realized the truth—but that didn't mean Marinette would appreciate surprises.

"Don't give us that look, Marinette. With intel from Nino and some coaching from me, you'll be talking to Adrien like a pro in no time, and it'll be a cinch to actually con him into a date."

"Besides, I need to help you out somehow," Nino added. "Before we knew what was going on, I texted Adrien. We thought he ran out looking for us but didn't hear us call." Nino frowned. "Wait, if this picture's yours, what's Adrien looking for?"

Marinette knew exactly what Adrien was looking for, but she shrugged apologetically. "He didn't tell me. He just said he'd lost it somewhere between your place and here, and—" She broke off. "Wait, what do you mean you texted him?"

Nino wordlessly passed his phone over, and Marinette swallowed as she read the line of messages.

She wished Alya and Nino had never gotten involved—how was she going to live this down, even if Adrien _was_ Chat Noir?—but it was too late now.


	8. Chapter 8

By the time Adrien had backtracked to the park near Nino's house, he still hadn't found anything. He'd even made a point of surreptitiously checking trash bins but to no avail. He was left trying to quash his rising panic that he wouldn't see the envelope—or his lady's picture—again. He'd have to tell her, of course. He'd have to admit how careless he'd been. No one else would know the picture was of Ladybug, but why would she ever feel she could trust him with her secret after he admitted what had happened?

"Just ask her for another picture," said Plagg from his shirt pocket. The kwami evidently had no trouble interpreting Adrien's mumbles.

"If she'd even give me one," Adrien muttered as he collapsed onto a bench. "I don't deserve it."

Plagg's response was two paws' worth of tiny claws digging into his chest. Adrien yelped and jerked his jacket open, and the kwami said, "You two work as a team. Ladybug knows what that means. Do you think she's as much of an idiot as you are?"

Adrien frowned and let the jacket drop back. He couldn't afford to have people wondering what he was doing. He couldn't really afford to sit around, either, so he got back to his feet and kept looking even as he talked to Plagg, heading back out of the park and retracing his steps towards Nino's house. "Of course not," he said, ignoring Plagg's jibe. He knew Ladybug was cleverer than he was. "She's one of the smartest and most resourceful people I know. But that doesn't mean she's not going to—ow! Plagg!"

Plagg retracted his claws. "How many times did she tell you this wasn't a matter of trust?"

Sometimes Adrien wondered if Plagg was able to read minds, but more likely he just knew Adrien very well after all the time they'd spent together. "That was before I gave her a major reason _not_ to trust me."

"So you ran into some bad luck. So did she. Do you not trust her after she lost her Miraculous and left you to deal with Blademaster?"

"That wasn't her fault," Adrien pointed out immediately. His roving eyes spotted nothing, and he feared they never would. "I wasn't there to back her up when she needed me." He hissed through his teeth at the sudden pinpricks of pain and added, "Enough with the claws!"

"Then start using your head," Plagg retorted. "You said it yourself: _Ladybug needs you_. And she's said she trusts you. I don't know why you think some lost picture is going to change that. It won't."

It wasn't just _some lost picture_. It was _Ladybug's_ picture. "Plagg—"

"So you made a mistake," Plagg interrupted. "Fine. So did she. That happens. You looked for the picture, you couldn't find it, and now you need to move on."

Plagg was, in his own way, trying to be supportive. Adrien sighed, stopped, and did an about face. Plagg was right. He wasn't going to find the envelope. He'd lost more than his chance to know Ladybug's identity, but he had to make the best of things—and abandoning his friends probably wasn't a way to begin doing that.

Adrien pulled out his phone to see if he had a message from Marinette yet—if she didn't have his number, it would be easy enough to get it from Alya or Nino—but his eyes were immediately drawn to what Nino had texted him: _Dude, why'd you let me think you were moping over Ladybug? You know I'd have your back!_

"I wasn't moping," Adrien muttered, but he read Nino's message again with a frown. Alone, it didn't make sense, but what followed it….

 _If I'd known you weren't just being nice to Marinette, I'd have told you to ask her out ages ago!_

Adrien had the distinct feeling Nino's text wasn't brought on by their exchange at the cinema. If nothing else, the fact that he'd abandoned Marinette would've given Nino pause. So why—?

 _How long have you been harbouring this crush? Because you've gotta have it_ _BAD_.

What had Adrien done to give Nino _that_ impression? Adrien did like Marinette—she was cute and sweet and smart—but he wouldn't do anything to betray his lady, even if she hadn't yet accepted his heart.

 _Besides. MARINETTE. I can totally be your wingman! It was not okay to keep this from me._

Well, there was no question what Nino was thinking there. Adrien chuckled and texted back, _What are you talking about?_

Nino didn't answer right away, and Adrien was nearly back at the movie theatre when he got the response: _Sorry, dude. I kinda got ahead of myself._

That was…odd. _What am I missing?_

 _Nothing, man._ Then, _I'm with Alya and Marinette at the café by the cinema._

It wasn't _nothing_ , but Adrien had no idea what it might actually be. Nino was much easier to read in person. Adrien didn't bother replying and instead waited to catch up with his friends in person. He saw three guilty faces when he arrived, which didn't make sense to him. Nino might've jumped to some wild conclusion about him and Marinette—which would admittedly be considerably less wild if he'd ever actually seen that movie with her—and Alya, knowing Alya, could well have egged him on. But unless they'd actually told Marinette….

Adrien faltered.

They'd told Marinette.

Granted, that didn't explain why she looked _guilty_. Embarrassed, sure, but guilty?

He put on a bright smile anyway as he dropped down into the empty chair opposite Nino to join them. "Hey, guys. What's up?"

Marinette turned red. Alya and Nino exchanged glances, and Nino shrugged self-consciously. "I got myself in trouble with our favourite Ladyblogger over here."

Alya gave Nino a good-natured whack on the arm and added, "It's my fault as much as yours. I lost my head when I saw that picture."

Picture?

"Can we please not talk about this right now?" Marinette whispered.

Picture.

 _Picture_.

He'd lost Ladybug's picture.

"What picture?" he blurted out.

Marinette cringed, and Alya went into damage control, waving it off and saying, "One Marinette dropped. It's no big deal."

Across from him, Nino mouthed, _Of Marinette_.

Adrien nodded in acceptance and quickly brought the discussion back to the movies playing at the theatre before Alya or Marinette or anyone else could ask him what _he_ had lost, but he stopped paying attention to more than the rhythm of their words. A picture. Of Marinette. The logical part of his mind pointed out that this could very well just be a coincidence—Marinette had obviously claimed the lost picture—but if it _wasn't_ ….

Flamethrower had noticed similarities Adrien had never seen—similarities that _did_ exist and certainly couldn't be denied. Ladybug had been around for at least five thousand years, but that didn't mean _that_ Ladybug was _this_ one, whatever they'd joked about. And this Ladybug had once dropped a history textbook used by those in his grade who attended his school.

Then there was the fact that, whatever he'd said, he really hadn't seen Ladybug and Marinette together—unless he counted the time he'd ended up seeing _two_ Ladybugs.

And the one other time he would've seen them together, the one time he _should've_ , above all others, was the one time they'd needed to protect Marinette—and that had just happened to coincide with some secret mission Ladybug had been sent on which she had claimed she couldn't tell him about. What if her so-called secret mission had simply been to fight as her civilian self?

And perhaps Ladybug's guilt and horror over what had happened with Flamethrower wasn't simply because innocents had been targeted in her name but had also been sparked by fear for her own family.

He and Ladybug had both accepted the risks that came with fighting Hawk Moth, but he had only ever been thinking about the risk it posed to themselves, not their families or friends. He'd always thought he could protect them, even after what had happened with Flamethrower. Now….

Now he wasn't so sure, if Marinette truly was Ladybug. And from what he understood from Nino and Alya, Marinette missed class about as often as he did—which made perfect sense if she was Ladybug. He'd always figured they were exaggerating, but if they weren't….

Adrien looked at Marinette from the corner of his eye. She met his gaze and quickly looked away, purposefully leaning across the table to ask Alya a question. He took the opportunity to memorize her features, comparing them to Ladybug's. Everything seemed to line up, right down to the shape of her earrings.

Her earrings.

Quite possibly, her Miraculous.

Adrien desperately tried to remember how Marinette had looked when he'd run into her Friday afternoon. Had she been wearing those earrings? Had she been injured in any way? He never saw Ladybug after the fight with Blademaster until everything had been restored. An injury incurred during a fight with one of Hawk Moth's victims would heal when Ladybug restored everything to its proper order, but Tikki had said Blademaster had _torn away_ Ladybug's Miraculous. It certainly brought to mind a more painful picture than _retrieved_ or _removed_.

Unfortunately, Adrien had no idea if Marinette had looked any different. He'd been so busy thinking about Ladybug and wondering if she'd receive and interpret his message—wondering if she'd trust him enough to meet him—that he hadn't even really _seen_ Marinette. He'd looked at her, talked to her, but noticed anything out of the ordinary? No. And he wasn't sure if he should have, which bothered him, since he'd been raised to pay attention to the little details.

Granted, if Ladybug was Marinette, he'd clearly been more than blind when it came to her.

But maybe that wasn't a bad thing, especially considering that Ladybug had wanted to keep their identities secret. He wondered if he'd managed to convince her to look in his envelope yet. He wondered, if she hadn't and if he wasn't crazy to think Marinette _was_ Ladybug, if Marinette had realized the truth now that she'd recovered her picture. He was sure, whatever the picture actually looked like, it was recognizable enough that she would know it for what it was. True, it reasonably could have been dropped by anyone who had been in or around the theatre, but if Alya and Nino had been the ones to find it—that certainly seemed implied given Nino's texts—then that scenario became considerably less likely. And if she ever thought about it, she would see the similarities between him and Chat Noir.

But if she did know, if she had realized, then was she not telling him because she thought _he_ didn't know?

Was she still keeping quiet, trying to keep it a secret because of where they were and who they were with, for fear that a few whispered words might still be overheard?

Or did she…did she wish Chat Noir was anyone else _but_ him?

The thought made Adrien uneasy, but he had to consider it. His father always spotted his failings, however well he thought he'd done at whatever the task. Perhaps Marinette could see them as well. Perhaps Marinette could see through him, through his mask, and knew that he could never match her, could never match Ladybug. Perhaps Marinette had looked at him and realized that he _wasn't_ worthy of being Chat Noir, not truly, and that his being chosen had been a mistake. Perhaps Marinette finally saw him for who he really was and realized he wasn't needed, that he wasn't even fit to stand in her shadow, let alone fight alongside her. Perhaps she'd finally realized he was nothing next to her and never would be.

Adrien hadn't realized he'd stood up until he noticed the others had stopped talking and were looking at him. "I…." He trailed off, wondering what he could say. He had no idea what they had been discussing. "I just remembered I didn't reschedule with Nathalie. I'd better go." It took effort to keep his voice steady, to keep his face smooth. It took effort to retain his mask.

Alya gave him a suspicious look but, for once, didn't press the matter. Nino frowned, as if trying to decide if he should say something, and settled on giving Adrien a look that promised a long conversation later, be it in person or on the phone or through text messages. And Marinette….

Marinette looked guilty.

She had probably guessed that he knew what she'd been thinking. Adrien managed a smile anyway as he lifted his hand to wave goodbye, but he made a quick escape. He couldn't face Marinette—Ladybug—knowing that she was no longer proud of her partner. Before telling Ladybug his true identity, it had never crossed his mind that she wouldn't accept him. He hadn't realized how much he'd come to depend on his mask.

As soon as he was out of sight of the others, Adrien began to run. He stopped in the nearest alley and pulled Plagg out of his pocket. "We need to transform," he said.

Plagg blinked his eyes open. "There's no attack."

Adrien rolled his eyes and initiated the transformation regardless. He needed…. He needed to get away for a bit. He needed time to come to terms with the fact that everything he'd dreamed might happen once he and Ladybug knew the truth about each other was far from the harsh reality. He should never have expected anything else. Certainly nothing better. He didn't deserve better.

Adrien started running across the rooftops without any particular destination in mind. He just wanted to _move_ , to lose himself in the numbing rush of wind over his face and through his hair. He just wanted to forget, if only for a moment, that he'd destroyed his easy relationship with Ladybug instead of making it perfect.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Adrien murmured. Ladybug might never hear the words the wind stole from his lips, but he felt better with them said. "I should never have pushed that we know the truth. It's my fault." If there was any way that he could change things, that he could correct his mistake….

But there wasn't.

He knew that.

Knowing just didn't make it any easier to accept. He'd give almost anything—

"Chat, watch out!"

Adrien jerked and twisted at the sound of Ladybug's—Marinette's—voice. He misjudged the jump and fell, having only a split second to see her racing along the rooftops about a block behind him before she was out of sight. He was so surprised that it was more by instinct than anything else that he was able to tuck and roll and recover his footing. He had just been lucky that the street—a residential one, he now realized—had been deserted.

Ladybug landed beside him a moment later, but instead of securing her yo-yo on her hip again, she lashed it out. Adrien flinched as it shot past his ear before he realized Ladybug had never been aiming for him. (Of course she hadn't been; she wouldn't miss a shot like that if he wasn't there to mess it up for her.)

"M-my lady?" He couldn't bring himself to call her Marinette, even knowing she would have realized he was Adrien.

"Gotcha," Ladybug said grimly. The yo-yo sprang back to her hand and she stared at it for a moment. He'd seen that look on her face before. He'd seen it on Friday and he'd seen it again yesterday. She looked like she was about to cry.

Instead, she opened her yo-yo and released a cleansed akuma Adrien had never even noticed.

Ladybug took a shaky breath and turned to look at him. "Whatever you're thinking," she said slowly, "just _stop_."

Adrien's stomach twisted. "It was coming for me," he realized.

She nodded. "Being Ladybug and Chat Noir doesn't give us protection from Hawk Moth. Didn't Plagg ever tell you that? We're stronger with them, but we still have to be strong enough to resist him on our own. What happened to your confidence, kitty?"

His confidence had never been anything more than a mask, and that had already been shattered.

When Adrien didn't answer, Ladybug sighed and returned her yo-yo to her hip.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Ladybug's head shot up. "Sorry?" she repeated, incredulous.

Adrien shifted uncomfortably. "This is my fault," he explained. "All of it. Beginning from when I pushed that we know each other's identities and…." He trailed off, for once not sure what to say.

Ladybug stared at him for a second before surging forward and enveloping him in a hug. "It's _not_ your fault," she whispered fiercely. "Please don't blame yourself for this. I don't know why you think that. You're the best partner I could ever have and finding out each other's identities was a mutual decision. I didn't have to open that envelope, and I didn't have to give you one in return, either."

Adrien froze. "You opened the envelope?"

"Late Friday night," Ladybug admitted, mumbling her answer into his shoulder. "I know I should have told you, but I didn't know how. And…and I was scared."

Adrien frowned. "Because of who I am?"

"Because of who _I_ am." A small laugh escaped Ladybug and she looked up at him. "You know who I am now, kitty. You know I'm just an ordinary girl who can't measure up to Ladybug when she isn't wearing her mask."

Adrien gaped at her for a moment. She thought _she_ didn't measure up to—?

"I'm not you," Ladybug continued. "You somehow manage to be the perfect partner or the perfect, well…."

"Son?" Adrien whispered the word. He ordinarily would never admit this—even with Nino, he sidled around the truth of his feelings on the matter—but when he was Chat Noir, he could pretend Adrien was someone else. Not having Adrien and Chat Noir connected was vital, of course, where everyone but Ladybug was concerned. Ladybug was different. He could be himself with Ladybug. But he didn't need anyone else, least of all his father, pointing to Adrien and seeing all of Chat Noir's flaws. "It's a far cry from perfection. I never seem to be good enough, no matter—"

"Bite your tongue, kitty cat," Ladybug said, straightening up in his arms and giving him a playful shove. "You've perfected more than just how to wear a mask."

"Everyone wears masks," Adrien murmured. "Perhaps we're just both better at it than some people."

"Perhaps, even if we sometimes let our other personas bleed through."

"Like your fear for your family?"

"More like my anger at Chloé," Ladybug admitted. "But our masks protected us in spite of that. I trusted you enough to rip that protection away. Tikki never said so, but I think she would have preferred it if I'd shoved your envelope into my bookcase and didn't look at it until I had to. But I did look. Because I was curious, yes, but also because I trusted you and I believed you when you said we'd be able to get through whatever came out of this. I believed things would be better if we knew even if I was afraid of the price of our knowledge. You're right. Hawk Moth still doesn't know who we are, even if he's closer to me than he's ever gotten before. We can get through this, whatever's ahead, but we'll only get through it together. We'll both make mistakes, but if we stay together…."

"I'll never leave your side, my lady," Adrien promised.

"You nearly did," Ladybug pointed out. She was quiet for a moment. Then, "Did you really not look in the envelope I gave you?"

"I opened it," Adrien answered slowly, "but I couldn't bring myself to look when I wasn't convinced that's what you wanted. I didn't figure it out until back at the café, and—"

"And you ran because you couldn't bear the thought of me as your partner?"

Ladybug's words were light, but Adrien could hear the tightness in her voice. He pulled her towards him again, and she didn't protest. She leaned against him, and he breathed in the scent of her hair. "I ran because I didn't believe I was worthy of _being_ your partner."

The response earned him another bone-crushing hug, but he couldn't bear to let her go. Ladybug. Marinette. He should have put them together ages ago.

"I'm the one who doesn't deserve you, kitty. I'm sorry. So let's promise to support each other, all right? We aren't in this alone, and we can rely on each other to do more than cover our backs in battle."

"I swear that I will do everything I can to protect you, my lady."

Ladybug stepped away from him then. She was frowning. "You can't, Chat Noir. You can't make a promise like that. Support me. Aid me. But don't sacrifice yourself for me. Not again. You can't make me go through that again. Especially not now. Please don't."

"Again?" Adrien repeated, having a sinking feeling that he knew what she was talking about.

"Six minutes," Ladybug whispered.

 _Timebreaker_.

"You can cleanse the akuma," Adrien said slowly. "I can't." He might not know the details, but he could guess them. "You are the true hero, Ladybug. You are the only one who can save everyone. And I…." He trailed off. She knew how that sentence ended. He was there to protect her. And when he hadn't been, Hawk Moth had nearly gotten her Miraculous. He'd nearly discovered her identity and had nearly destroyed her.

And Adrien wasn't sure he could bear life without her.

"You are the reason Ladybug can win," she said, stretching out one hand to tap the tip of his nose. "Don't forget that, kitty cat."

Adrien caught her hand and kissed it. "I won't, my lady." He lowered his hand but kept his fingers entangled in hers. "What about the others?"

"They aren't expecting us back; I told them I was going to give you my picture after all. I can field the questions later." That was certainly no simple feat, knowing Alya. "Besides," Ladybug added in a softer tone, "I was told we could stop by the bakery for something sweet if we ever wished it, and now might be just the time. We can sit down with something and talk."

Ladybug was very careful not to say anything too direct about her identity, even now. Adrien could not fault her caution. They both had reason to worry, especially after what he'd nearly allowed to happen to him. He'd been careless. He should have been more careful.

He shouldn't have abused the freedom of the mask.

Plagg never _had_ mentioned whether or not Hawk Moth would be able to control him, but Plagg did not mention a lot of things. He wondered if Plagg would be able to fight Hawk Moth off, to keep him from fully controlling Adrien, if at all, or if—

No.

Ladybug was right.

Plagg _wouldn't_ have been able to hold off Hawk Moth, at least not for long. Adrien might not remember much about what had happened with Dark Cupid, but he knew enough to know that he'd been affected—and that he'd been transformed at the time.

If he gave Hawk Moth an opening, he was as vulnerable as anyone else.

And more dangerous because of it.

Knowing that any deal he made with Hawk Moth, however good it seemed, would turn sour was not necessarily knowledge enough to stand in the way of Hawk Moth's persuasive words, promising whatever he most wanted.

Adrien squeezed Ladybug's hand. "I'd like that." He could borrow her strength; she had far more of it than she realized. And even if he was hiding behind his mask, he wouldn't mind being able to enjoy the feeling of _family_ again, just for a moment.

This was turning out far better than he'd ever dared to hope it would whenever he'd tried to wheedle Ladybug's identity from her. He hadn't truly thought it would be this easy for him to spend time with Ladybug when neither of them was wearing a mask. Given what Nino and Alya clearly believed, there would be no barriers to him spending more time with Marinette now when they weren't simply Chat Noir and Ladybug. He didn't think they'd really need an explanation, anyway. Matters of the heart weren't easily explained.

His father would not approve, and Nathalie would report it to him the moment she realized the truth—that Marinette, whatever her social station, meant more to him than any other girl—but for her, Adrien would argue. He had to. He didn't like the strict restrictions on his friendship with Nino—he would have preferred to be able to have friends over every once in a while—but he could not fight every battle, and he had to pick them carefully. He might not be as strong when it came to strategy as Ladybug, but he knew that much.

Ladybug finally freed her hand to unclasp her yo-yo. "I'll race you there," she proposed lightly. "Are you ready?"

Adrien grinned at her as he pulled out his staff. "Always."

Whatever threat Hawk Moth might have up his sleeve, Adrien planned to meet it with his claws out. He would go down fighting if he went down at all, and he would protect Ladybug to his last breath whatever she said. They would fight together, and they would win. Always.

* * *

A/N: This is the happy ending. *grins* That being said, I'm aware of the major thread left untouched, so I may write a part two or sequel of sorts to this at some point. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your comments.


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